


Violator

by MooseFeels



Series: Revelation [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abandonment, Abduction, Alpha Castiel, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Dean, Panic Attacks, Violence, mentions of mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:45:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 49
Words: 38,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2151243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's fifteen, and his knot doesn't pop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean is fifteen and his knot doesn’t pop and he feels his blood run cold.

It’s three months before his sixteenth birthday, winter just beginning to bloom and he’s in his room, panicking.

He’s not sure how it works, really. His pack doesn’t do sex ed. He just knows what happens to the boys whose knots don’t pop. They don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about them. Some boys, they just disappear, and there’s only room in the pack for boys with knots.

He’s alone, in the bathroom, his hand around his dick, and it’s not happening. Nothing’s happening. He’s come, short and easily three times in the past day and nothing’s happened.

No knot.

He can barely breathe.

He has to.

It has to happen.

* * *

 

He’s shaken awake in his bed. It’s dark and above his covers it’s cold.

He’d kissed his mom at dinner last night. There’s a letter to Sam slid under his door.

No faces, just black masks. No words just hands.

He’s pushed into a trunk of a car outside. It’s not his dad’s car, long and black and vicious. It’s white and small and inconspicuous and the trunk is close.

His sweatpants are fleece. He’s wearing a thin sleep shirt. In the January air, his breath hangs in dense clouds.

It’s the day before his birthday.

They drive for hours, or at least it feels like hours, and then the car stops.

He’s pulled out of the trunk once the car stops. There’s a bonfire burning about twenty feet away and the masked men drag him over to the fire. He can’t quite really resist, there are so many of them and he’s not wearing shoes or heavy clothes. He lost feeling in his limbs during the drive out to whereever the hell they are.

One of them pulls something out of the fire. A brand. It’s red hot.

“No,” Dean shouts. “No!” He screams.

He keeps screaming as they bring it closer and closer and then it’s on him. It’s burning into him.

It hurts like nothing else has hurt in his life.

When they let go of him, he collapses. He’s close to the fire but it feels like all of him is hot. All of him is burning and dying and falling apart.

They throw a bag down next to him. They drive off.

Dean passes out.

He’s sixteen today.

* * *

 

Dean wakes up on the ground and he gasps aloud and then he screams, because moving his face stretches and tears the enormous brand on his face.

He can’t bring himself to move. Can’t bring himself to touch it. He just lays on the ground and cries and screams.

He passes out again.

* * *

 

When he wakes back up, it’s dusk. He tears the bag open.

There’s a pair of shoes, a coat, and bundles and bundles and bundles of cash.

More money than Dean’s ever seen in his life.

Panic runs through his brain like a greyhound on a track.

He zips the bag back up.

He remembers the shoes and the coat, unzips the bag, and puts them on.

He’s cold, he realizes. He’s cold and there’s probably upwards of thirty thousand dollars in this bag.

His face aches.

He slings the bag over one shoulder, picks a direction (east, given where the sun presently is) and walks.

He’s panicking, but panic isn’t going to solve this.

Walking might not either, but right now, it’s the only thing Dean can think to do.

* * *

 

It’s nearly the end of the third week of January and Castiel’s pretty done with this waking up cold shit.

His cabin is pretty small, but it’s just the right size for just him. The pipes shudder like hell and there’s no hot water and frankly there isn’t central heating either-

Fucking, okay, it’s nonsensical as hell that Castiel still lives in this cabin but the thing is, every alpha instinct in him tells him that he has to live out here, that the pack is safer out here with him near the border of their land, able to see who comes and who goes on the only road in or out.

It was a good choice, his grandfather made when he settled here. The isthmus of pack lands just out into the sea, virtually inaccessible except by the road that wanders out of the woods, just by Castiel’s house.

Being alpha is like being the guard dog.

He shrugs into a waffle knit shirt and a big woolen shirt. A pair of jeans and some socks.

He flicks on his coffee pot and pulls the curtains away from the window.

And coming down the road, not too far away, is a figure.

Castiel frowns at it.

Short and slight at this distance, closer and closer now.

Castiel pulls his shotgun from the corner and steps out onto his porch. He aims.

Forty feet away now.

“Stop,” Castiel barks, as loud as he can.

The figure seizes in his tracks and puts his hands up in the air.

“Fuck are you?” Castiel asks.

“Help,” the voice calls. It cracks.

Young.

Castiel puts down the gun and the figure walks forward.

As the figure comes forward, Castiel realizes he’s a kid. Can’t be more than seventeen, maybe younger. Short blonde hair. Wearing light pajamas and a big coat in this cold, lightweight sneakers and a huge black duffel bag.

There’s a huge cut on his face, covering most of his left cheek.

As the kid comes forward, slowly, Castiel realizes it’s not a cut, it’s burned into him.

And it’s shaped, deliberately, like one of those greek letters or something.

 

“Help,” the boy whimpers, and Castiel rushes off of his porch just fast enough to catch the kid as he falls.

* * *

 

Dean feels so hot, like his insides are ready to boil and evaporate out of his pores. He feels like every fever he ever had as a kid is back, soaring through him rapidly.

He opens his eyes, which feel heavy, like they are lidded in lead. It’s dark in his room, and cold too.

“Mom,” he groans. His voice breaks, hoarse. “Mom, I don’t feel good.”

A crack of light escapes into the room and he feels a rough but cool hand settle over his brow. “Dad?” he asks.

A cool rag is draped over his forehead. Something near his face makes a rustling sound. His face hurts, actually, his whole head throbs like it’s about to burst. It hurts like hell, actually.

“Dad, my head hurts,” he whines.

Dad makes a slow, shushing noise and takes back the rag. He wrings it out into a bowl and drapes it back over him.

It feels good.

Dad pushes his hair away from his face. It’s a unfamiliar gesture for him. Usually Dad just grunts and shakes his head; Mom is usually the one with medicine and help.

A straw is pushed into his mouth, and Dean manages to take a labored sip. He swallows, but he feels like he’s going to vomit.  He shakes his head.

Dad brushes his hair back again and leaves.

Dean falls back asleep.

* * *

 

The kid is light in Castiel’s arms. He’s made of sturdy muscle, tanned and freckled.His mouth is slack, his body is loose. His lips are blue from the cold.

God only knows how long he’s been out in the woods.

Castiel drags him up the three wooden steps to his front door and nudges the door open. He lurches to his bed and lays the kid down.

Castiel looks at him, prone on the bed and realizes he has no idea what he’s doing.

This...this is new to him.

He picks up the phone and dials rapidly.

“Anna,” he says, “Anna come quickly.”

He hangs up before his sister can say anything and looks at the kid on the bed.

He tugs off his shoes, first thing, because they’re caked in mud and Castiel only has so many blankets and he can’t wash them until the spring comes.

The kid wasn’t wearing socks. His feet are chapped and bloody and bruised.

“Fuck,” Castiel whispers.

The kid groans.

He puts a kettle full of water in the fire.

The burn on his face is enormous. It curves up to meet his cheekbone, is flares at the edges to follow his jaw.

Castiel feels his stomach sink.

He knows this mark.

“Fuck,” he murmurs.

He grabs rags from the closet and what he’s got by way of a first aid kit.

He kneels next to the bed and pulls out a roll of gauze and a tube of antiseptic.

“Shit,” he mutters. He squeezes a glob of antiseptic onto his fingertip and spreads it over the mark on the kid’s face. Lays the gauze over it and uses surgical tape to secure it to his face.

He hears Anna’s car pull onto the gravel lot next to his door. She storms in.

“What the hell?” She starts, and then Castiel moves just enough for her to see.

Anna’s face grows pale.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, shit.”

“I thought this was illegal,” Castiel says, getting out of the way.

Anna shakes her head. “Doesn’t change shit out in the sticks,” she says. “Still, can’t believe they dumped him here.”

“Didn’t,” Castiel says. “They didn’t dump him. He was walking.”

Anna glances down at his feet. “Fuck me,” she says. “And the bag?”

“Yeah,” Castiel says.

She looks up at the ceiling of the cabin. “Fuck me,” she repeats. “How much?”

“I haven’t counted,” he says.

“You’re alpha,” she says. “By all laws, formal and informal, it’s your job.”

“I know, Anna,” he says.

She pulls a thermometer out of her bag and slips it into the kid’s ear. She waits for a few minutes and says, “No fever.”

“Oh thank christ,” Castiel sighs.

She pulls a needle from her bag and says, “Tetanus booster.”

Castiel watches her administer it and says, “You just carry those around?”  
Anna shrugs. “You live out in the sticks. I never know why you’re gonna call. I’ve also got a full round of rabies and flu shots in here-”  
“Give what you can to him,” he interrupts. “God knows what was out there.”  
Anna nods grimly, and the next few minutes are taught silent but for the sound of her disinfecting sections of skin and sticking him.

There’s a low moan on the bed, but the kid doesn’t open his eyes.

“These will give him a fever,” she says, “but he won’t go into heat. Malnourishment and cold will prevent it from triggering, at least for a while.”

She peels off the gauze.

The brand is inflamed and swollen. Enormous over his face. Puckered and scabbed and angry.

She pulls out another alcohol wipe and tears it open. She dabs at his brand, pulling away grime and dried blood and oozing, clear plasma.

The kid’s breath hitches.

“Stitches won’t do anything. And it’s too late to prevent scarring,” she murmurs. She pulls out an aerosol can and shakes it. She squirts out a bit of foam and smears it over the wound. “This thing isn’t going to get it clean, I don’t...I don’t think it’ll ever be clean enough but it’ll stave off infection. She puts a clean bandage on it.

Looks at Castiel and says, “You’re going to keep him warm and you’re going to keep that thing clean. And when he’s conscious and sensible, you’re going to bring him into town.”

“Fuck, Anna,” he says to his sister. “Shit.”

Anna shakes her head. “Not now,” she says. “Freak out about this not now. Two weeks from now when we’ve got the kid in a house and settled down, you can freak out. But not now, Cas. Alpha, Cas.”

And Castiel closes his eyes and takes a long, deep breath.

He knows his sister is right- she always is.

“Omega,” Castiel says.

Anna places her hand on his shoulder and gives him a grim look.

She leaves her first aid kit when she goes and Castiel looking at a teenager.

“I’m not equipped for this,” he says.

He locks the door when Anna leaves. He picks the kid up and moves him slowly to the actual bedroom, lays him on the bed and starts working on laying a fire.

* * *

 

Dean’s eyes hurt when he opens them. His head aches. His everything aches, actually.

He’s hurting and he can barely move when he turns his head and realizes-

This isn’t his room. This isn’t his house. There isn’t anything here that’s his, it’s all completely unfamiliar. He pushes himself up off of the lumpy mattress and shivers. There’s a low fire burning in a fireplace in one corner and he’s under a ton of blankets. He moves his fingers, trying to pull sensation back into them and his head is killing him and the door opens and there’s a guy there.

“You’re awake,” he exclaims.

He’s older than Dean. He’s tall and muscular and his blue eyes are held wide and surprised.

“Where am I?” Dean asks, but his face is sore, actually, scratch that, it hurts like hell and he clutches his cheek and he just feels gauze under his hands and he remembers- he remembers why he’s so sore.

And he screams.

The guy puts something down on the table and he comes forward. “Deep breath,” he says loudly. “Deep breaths, okay? You’re scared and you’re hurt but you’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay, kid.”  
Dean takes a deep, shuddering breath, and the movement tears at the brand on his face. He pulls at the bandage on his face, tears at it because he has to touch it.

“Kid,” the guy says, “don’t okay, if you don’t keep it clean it’ll never heal right.”

He sits down on the floor, in front of Dean, non-threatening.

“Who are you?” Dean demands. “Where am I? Why did they do this? Why did they take me away?”

“Sex ed,” the guy says, quickly. “Did you have sex ed?”

Dean shakes his head, so fast it makes his head hurt more. “No,” he answers. “My pack didn’t believe in it. I just know I didn’t- I’m supposed to be married, I was supposed to get my knot and on my sixteenth birthday get married.”

“Kid,” the guy says, “do you know what omegas are?”

* * *

 

“No,” the kid shouts.

And Castiel wishes Anna or Ellen or Gabriel or anyone was here because he can’t handle this.

The kid looks so damn fragile on the bed, so small with the gauze hanging off his face and-

“Who are you?” the kid roars.

Castiel licks his lips. “I’m Castiel Novak,” he answers. “I’m pack alpha for the Novak Pack. You’re in Washington state, on the northwestern coast. You’re on the edge of our territory. You were walking and I found you and brought you in. A fifteen mile hike from here is town.”

The kid looks no less terrified.

“Kid,” Castiel asks, “who are you?”

“I’m Dean,” he says. “I’m from Montana. I have a brother who’s four years younger than me and a mom and a dad and I’m in the tenth grade and I’m scared and I just want to go back why did they pull me out of my bed, is it because I’m broken? What happened, what’s happening? Where’s my dad?”

The kid’s voice is barely not a shout. Dean’s voice is barely not a shout.

“Dean,” Castiel says, trying to sound as calm as he can manage. “Dean, you’re an omega- do you know what that means?”

“NO!” the kid shouts again.

Castiel’s mouth feels dry. His clothes feel too tight. Can’t freak out right now, he thinks.

“Dean,” Castiel says softly, “some people don’t have knots. Some people don’t develop that way. And that’s okay, Dean, it’s just different.”

“No,” Dean says, panic surging through his voice, “no, my knot’s going to happen and I’m going to get marrie-”

“Dean,” Castiel interrupts softly, “Dean, how old are you?”  
“Today is my birthday,” he howls. “I’m sixteen.”

Kid hasn’t had his first heat yet or his first knot. He could be either.

He could be either and he just didn’t bloom early enough.

“Dean, you might not get a knot. You might...you might go into heat and have babies,” Castiel says softly.

Dean shakes his head, back and forth and then faster and faster, frantically. “No,” he says, “no, I’m going to get my knot and I’m going to get married and be a firefighter and I’m going to be a daddy and make the pack proud they’re going to come back and find me and it’s going to be okay, I’m going to get my knot and it’s going to be okay-”

“Dean,” Castiel says, “Dean- they dropped you.”

There’s no sound.

And then that hand is back, tearing at the bandage and then the brand and Castiel has to reach out and hold his hands, prevent him from scraping and scratching against himself and hurting himself, just holds the kid, seizing there, until he passes out again.

Castiel can’t figure out if this was a victory or a failure.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

It’s six am when Castiel finally falls asleep.

Everything about someone else being in the cabin is bringing every one of Castiel’s nerves to a head. He’s washed the dishes four times, he’s chopped enough wood for the next six weeks, he’s swept everything and dusted and he’s got a pork butt the size of Delaware thawing in the sink. Gonna cook that with brown sugar and the mostarda Ellen made for him last summer.

He’s got to work. He’s got to do things, because otherwise he’s sitting and if he’s sitting the pack is vulnerable.

Castiel stays out in the woods for his sanity as much as for the actual protection of pack.

He remembers when he became Alpha. Two weeks later, Missouri was in a car wreck and Castiel almost killed himself, unsleeping for five nights and repairing houses and cars and putting in gardens and just...just working. Building fences and repairing roads.

He has to sleep at an angle on the couch, his head twisted slightly, feet hanging off the edge. He’s tangled up in a blanket, one that smells like Gabriel’s dog.

He sleep fitfully, uneasily, and when he wakes up, it’s to the sound of a door opening and someone stepping into the main room of the cabin.

He sits up and the kid is standing in the doorway with a blanket draped over his shoulders. He looks pale. The freckles on his face stand out vividly.

“My face hurts,” he croaks.

Castiel gets up and walks over to the medicine cabinet, over the kitchen sink. He pulls out a bottle of painkillers- the ones he had two springs ago when he broke his ankle chasing a buck. He shakes one out and pours a glass of water. Gives them both to the kid.

The kid takes the pill and holds it in his hand. He looks up at Castiel.

“It’s a painkiller,” he says. “Everything under that bandage is clean and ointmented. It just needs time.”

The kid throws the pill back and drinks some of the water.

He looks tired. Shaken.

“Where am I again?” he asks.

“Western Washington,” he says. “Novak Pack.”

The kid backs up, steadies himself on the wall. “I’m from Montana,” he says softly. “I’ve never been out of Montana, I’ve never been off pack grounds.”

“What pack?” Castiel asks softly. “Do you know what pack?”

Dean shakes his head. “They never...they never told me. I never asked.”

Castiel nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. You hungry?”

The kid nods a couple of times.

“Okay,” Castiel says. “I’ve got uh...I’ve got ham and eggs. Sound okay?”

The kid nods again.

He sits down at the rough wooden table Bobby made for him a few years ago and looks around the cabin, bewildered.

“Who are you?” he asks. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m Castiel,” he says. “I’m pack alpha.”

He’s pulling milk out of the fridge and when he turns back and the kid is on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice shaking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I didn’t know, I’ll leave. I’m sorry I entered your space and your grounds. I’ll leave, I’ll just go back out on the road.”

He’s kneeling there, his head bowed and neck exposed.

* * *

 

Dean remembers pack Alpha; he remembers visiting him when Sam was born. He remembers his father and his mother kneeling, heads bowed. He remembers bowing himself. The room was dark. The Alpha was backlit. His face was invisible, his body shapeless.

He’d never been so scared in his life, the hand of the Alpha’s lieutenant forcing his head downward to stare hard at the concrete floor.

The floor in the Alpha’s house here is worn wood, splintering and rough under his hands.

Look down, he thinks. Look down and you might live.

There’s sound near him. In front of him. Something invades his vision, some fabric.

Dean lifts his eyes for the barest second, and the Alpha is sitting in front of him, on the floor.

Dean sinks further to the ground, his belly resting on the floor.

“Dean,” the Alpha says softly. “Please, get up.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “I’m sorry, please don’t- please, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” the Alpha says. “It is at the bottom of the list of things I want to do. I want you to be safe. I want you to be healed. I don’t know what alphas did in your pack. I don’t know why they didn’t...I don’t know. But I want to protect you. And that’s what I’m supposed to do, as alpha. And you’re on my pack’s land now, and that means I’m going to protect you, Dean.”

Dean’s quiet. Dean’s quiet and still. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move or do anything, because if he’s still and he’s silent, he’s submitting to the authority.

Never give them a reason, his dad had said. They won’t hurt you if you never give them a reason.

Dean’s not sure how long they stay there, but the Alpha doesn’t move and neither does he.

“Kid,” the Alpha says. “Dean, please. You’re hungry. Let me make you breakfast.”

* * *

 

They must sit on the floor for forty five minutes before the kid flinches up from his belly and manages to sit cross legged. His head is still tilted downward, submissive and shy, but at least he’s not eating dirt anymore.

“I’m gonna make those eggs now,” Castiel says. “And I’ll start the water heating for a bath.”

He pulls the big kettle out of the cabinet and fills it, settles it among the coals of the fireplace in the bedroom. He’s got a hot water heater for the cabin but it doesn’t work too well and it’s small to boot. Kid needs hot water and plenty of it. “You’ll probably want to get clean after breakfast,” he comments.

Castiel busies himself cooking, letting the kid pull himself together. When he turns around to the table with a full plate, the kid is sitting on a chair, his hands at his sides, his head crooked downward.

Nearly jumps out of his skin when Castiel reaches around and places the plate on the table.

“Eat up,” he says. “Let me draw you the bath.”

The kid eats gingerly, and one hand rests over the enormous burn on his cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more of this but it'll update really irregularly. Like, moreso than usual.


	3. Chapter 3

The kid eats. He doesn't say anything to Castiel, despite his constant, nervous chattering. He looks down. He stays quiet. His hand rests on his cheek, magnetically drawn.

The bathtub is full and steaming, and Castiel pokes his head around the doorway into the great room- the main room- and says, "You wanna get clean?"

Kid flinches and says softly, " _Can't_."

Dean's eyes are huge and green. He looks terrified, like all he wants to do is shut his eyes and have this all go away.

Castiel can't blame him, actually.

"Okay," Castiel says. "There's only so much hot water and it'll only be hot so long. I'm going to go into the room and strip the sheets and put on new ones. It's up to you what happens next."

The kid nods and Castiel nods back at him. 

In the bedroom, Castiel can't help but think about what he knows and what he doesn't know.

The packs out there, he knew they were conservative, but he had no idea...he had no idea the weight the old laws still held out there.

He doesn't know the kid's last name, and the kid...the kid doesn't even know his own last name, the pack he might belong to.

The kid barely even knows what he _is,_ what omega means.

Castiel hears a slight sloshing sound in the room next door.

Dean's in the bathtub.

It's good and its bad. Good because the kid is covered in sweat and dirt and bruises; bad because it will erase the scent trail back to the pack he was born in, removing evidence. It'll make it harder to bring forward criminal charges and fuck.

  
_Fuck_ does Castiel want to bring forward criminal charges.

Next to the bed is the kid's bag, a big, black, non-descript duffel.

Castiel looks at the thing intently, feels the nervous twitch of his fingers and hands.

He puts the thing on the bed and unzips it.

" _Fuck_ ," he murmurs.

He pulls out a stack of bills- crips, newly minted hundreds- and counts through it quickly.

" _Fuck_ ," he repeats.

It's more than fifty thousand dollars.

By old laws, it's a dowry.

* * *

The water is _hot_. Hot enough to almost burn him, but it's all that Dean wants. It worms into the sensationless chill in his feet and arms and legs.

He aches all the way through his body, in his blistered and cut feet and his sore legs and his stiff arms from carrying the bag.

The _bag_.

He'd forgotten about the bag.

Dean smells the last, distant vestiges of his home, his house, on his skin and hair. He catches it subtly, and it brings up something in his throat that catches.

He'll never go back there. He'll never see Sam or his mom again- he'll never-

Dean knows his father was among the people who took him. He smelled him. He felt his hands on him. He saw his steely eyes in the cut holes of a black knit mask.

Dean knows his father was there, and it leaves ice in him that the hot water cannot thaw.

Dean sits in the bath for a long time, until the water stops steaming and grows cool and still.

He looks up, at the light reflecting off the mirror over the sink.

He climbs out of the tub and looks at himself in the mirror.

"Happy birthday," he whispers.

He pulls the bandage off his face.

It looks like a disaster.

It's huge. It's the size of his palm, covering his whole cheek.  It's red and swollen, distorting the shape of his face from under his eye to the edge of his jaw. It's scabbed and torn where his face moves his cheeks. It oozes plasma and blood.

It's shaped like an upside down u, with flared sides.

Dean presses his hand against the mark. It burns. It aches.

He grabs a towel off the rack and pulls the plug on the bathtub.

He walks out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. The air is cold and tight on his skin, like it's shrinking around him.

The alpha has the bag open, a stack of bills in his hand.

He looks up at Dean with his stern, blue eyes. "Let me get you-"  
"What does it mean?" Dean asks, wearing only this borrowed towel and bathwater.

The Alpha's eyes grow a little bit. Every bit as serious and grim as they've ever been but softened slightly by that thing that shows up every time Dean seems to ask a question or answer one.

"What does it mean?" Dean repeats.

The Alpha drops the money back into the bag.

"It's an old custom," he says. "It means they've...it means you've been sent out. It means you're an omega and you have been..."

He pauses, heavily.

"It means you are an omega and you have been sent out of the pack of your birth and you cannot return."

It's worse to hear it. To know it's real and that everyone knew but him.

He's been sold.

His feet hurt, but as they fall out from under him and his vision goes dark, he realizes that his face throbs constantly at low level agony.


	4. Chapter 4

When Dean wakes up again, there's a woman with long red hair in the room with him. She has pale skin and bright eyes. Her hair curls around her face ever so slightly- it looks like it'll get in the way more than anything.

"There you are," she murmurs. "You gave Castiel quite a scare."  
The whole left side of Dean's face feels numb.

"I put a topical anesthetic on it," she says. "I can't imagine it feels too great."  
The room is dark- it's night again.

There's light bleeding from the doorway, the figure of the guy, of Castiel, in it.

"My name is Anna," she says. "I hoped we would meet on better terms than this but Castiel's people skills...I think maybe it'll be better if I'm here for a few days to help out."

"They sold me," he tries to say. He's not sure how clearly it comes out- his throat feels thick and his face is slack and numb. He feels a thin line of drool on the side of his face and he moves to wipe it away.

Anna freezes. Her eyes grow big. She looks down and fiddles with something, a wrap. Dean realizes suddenly he has an IV in, a line of clear liquid flowing into him.

"Dean," she says, "you're name is Dean, right?"  
He nods.

"Dean, you're an _Omega_. It means you don't get a knot. It means that you can bear children and it means that once every few months or so, you'll have a heat. A fever that will last three or four days, increased sexual appetite, and your secondary sexual characteristics will make themselves known, including the production of pheromones and slick." She pauses. Her voice is steady and calm. "Legally, you are entitled to the same rights as anyone else," she continues. "And that includes the prosecution and trial of the people who have kidnapped you, physically maimed you, and left you hundreds of miles from home. You are entitled to an education in public schools and you are entitled to legal protection."

Dean feels his heart racing again, that dizzy feeling.

"Some packs," she says, "they adhere to old laws. Traditions."

Dean feels the preacher's voice in his memory. He feels the scripture like a tattoo over his chest.

_In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth._

_And the earth was without form, and void; and the darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spririt of God moved upon the face of the waters._

  
_And God said, Let there be light: and there was light_.

* * *

The kid starts rocking back and forth, muttering something. He seems disconnected, almost catatonic.

Castiel realizes, suddenly, that it's Genesis. The book of Genesis- fucking, it's the _bible_.

"Anna," he says, "Anna, can you pull him out of this? Can you make this-"  
She pulls a syringe out of her bag and pierces it into the IV line.

The kid's murmuring gradually stops and his eyes go wide one last time before he falls under.

"Do you get it now?" He says softly. "Anna, this kid-"  
"The law states that by taking him into the house, you brought him into the pack and accepted the dowry. It counts as a whole legal procedure on your end- I looked it up and talked to Kevin."

" _Shit_ ," Castiel hisses.

Anna stands. She looks at the kid on the bed, small and slack, like his strings have been cut.

"If you take him into town, Bobby can run his prints," she says. "And he can begin procedure to find the pack but by the sounds of it, they're off grid. They're way off grid. Cas, you're going to have to get him an SSN and-"  
"I know," he interrupts.

"He was saying scripture," she murmurs.  
"And God made a third for them," Castiel murmurs. "A third of weaker body and mind, a servant to ease the pains of Eve and the needs of Adam."

"You think they're...?" She lets it hang there.

"If it's not Church of Christ the Alpha, I'll strip in the town square," he answers.

"I thought they all disappeared out in the seventies, after Texas," she says.

Castiel shakes his head. "Just moved up north and got better at hiding, I guess," he says. "Emphasis on the bible, the branding, the drop- Anna, this poor kid." From here, his head turned, the brand and bandage is invisible. His features are regular and fair- quite beautiful. Castiel can't help but wonder if he'll be this beautiful when he's older or if he'll grow out of this.

"I'll take the floor," Castiel says. "You take the couch."  


* * *

When Castiel wakes up the next morning, it's to the sound of the shower running.

He looks over at the couch. Anna is still wrapped up tight in the blankets.

He gets up and peers into the bedroom- the bed is empty.

He knocks on the bathroom door.

"Dean?" He says. "Dean, the tap doesn't have hot water, the heater is broken."

There's no answer. Castiel opens the door. "Dean?" He calls.

The shower curtain pulls back and the kid looks at him, his hair full of shampoo. He glares at him, like Castiel is madman.

"Fuck, okay," he says. "Um, carry on."

He shuts the door.

He goes to the bedroom. The IV is clamped shut; the butterfly needle laid on the nightstand.

"Damn," Castiel murmurs.

He lays out a pair of jeans and a shirt, some old boxers, too.

He goes to the kitchen and starts making breakfast, glad to have the ends of the bacon in the fridge and the biscuits in the icebox.

He flicks on the stove and oven and starts cooking.

He's got the coffee brewed when the shower is turned off and the bedroom door shuts.

Anna turns over on the couch and blinks awake.  
"He up?" She asks.

Castiel nods. He pours the eggs in the skillet and they sizzle against the bacon grease. "He took a shower," he says.

"It's January and you have a broken water heater," she says.

"Yeah, I know," he says.

The door opens and the kid comes into the room. He has a fresh bandage over his face. His hair is wet. He's dressed but he still looks cold- like he's just taken a shower in fifteen degree water or something.

"You feeling okay?" Castiel asks, putting a plate on the table with bacon, eggs, and a couple of biscuits.

Dean looks at him like Castiel has sustained major brain damage.

Castiel rolls his eyes. "I mean, do you feel feverish? Too warm? That water...I know for a fact that it's not frozen only because we keep it moving, I mean Jesus, it's probably superchilled or something."

Dean nods. He picks up the fork and starts eating.

"I'd like to take your temperature after breakfast," Anna says, shuffling to the table. "Just to check. But if you're eating, chances are you're not feverish, just crazier than shit."

Dean's face quirks into a loose smile before he takes another bite.

He's not speaking, Castiel realizes.

He's not speaking but he's also not shaking, not seizing, and not passing out. He's not sure if it's an improvement or not.

Dean taps on the table and pantomimes writing, an eyebrow raised in question.

Castiel gets up and digs around in the junk drawer next to the door and pulls out a notepad and a pencil.

He tosses it on the table and Dean takes it. Jots some stuff down.

  
_Face still aches,_ he writes in a jittery but clear hand. _Less than yesterday, though_.

Castiel nods. "Good," he says. "Means it's probably not infected."

Anna nods next to him. "The anesthetic would have worn off by now," she answers. "We should probably put an anti-inflammatory into your system and it'll help more."  
Dean nods.

They eat breakfast, in tense, tight silence.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The thermometer is cold and blunt in his ear. It beeps after a moment and Anna pulls it out.

"No fever," she says.

They both look relieved.

Dean remembers the scripture.

  
_And the third became like an animal_.

He blinks and tries to settle himself deeper into the moment here, tries to leave the cold pews of the chapel and the red face of the minister behind.

Castiel looks at him. His blue eyes are serious, and dark bags hang heavy under them, like he hasn't slept well in a long time. He smells like he hasn't showered in a couple of days, sweat and the smell of the woods enveloping him. His hair is a mess.

Dean can't imagine that he's more than twenty two, twenty three, and Anna next to him is maybe one or two years older.

"Okay," Castiel says, and his voice is sure. Authoritative. "So we need to take you into town sometime soon. There's a clinic there that can take care of you better than we can here and we can set you up in a house with..." He runs a hand through his hair, he sighs. "With a working water heater, to say the least. It's not a long drive into town, you'd go in Anna's car. You'll take the bag and she'll help you set up a bank account with it. Okay?"

Dean looks at this guy. He remembers the scripture. Adam and Abraham and Christ himself all these men- these leaders these ordained Alphas, selected by God himself.

It's not Dean's place to question what he wants, when he wants it. That's not his job, as the third. As the animal.

He nods.

There are no words inside of him, nothing he can say, nothing he's able to say. He remembers this feeling, the first time he went to the town school, the first time his father-

It is like there is a chest inside of him, and inside of it is every word he could ever want to say is locked inside of it, and even though he's looked for the key, even though there is a sea of keys inside of him, he can't find it.

He taps on the table a couple of times and then he pulls the notepad over.

  
_Okay_ , he writes.

Castiel, blue eyes heavy with exhaustion, nods at him again.

"Let me get my keys," Anna murmurs. She gets up and moves to the back of the house. "I think Bobby'll have room for you. If not, we can always talk to Missouri."

Dean looks at Castiel, whose clothes he is wearing. They smell like cold water and the fusty floral scent of old soap, running underneath the smell of cedar.

It doesn't smell like his house. It doesn't smell like anything, really, nothing to connect it to but this cabin, this place he's literally stumbled onto.

* * *

Anna and the kid leave, and the cabin is empty again, just him and the woodpile and the shotgun and the telephone.

He sits on the couch for a long moment and then he slips into his boots and steps outside, into the woods.

The patrol settles something inside of him. It freezes the jittering, anxious thing inside of him, the part of him that will always ring like a pocket full of bottle caps, the part of him that will always _want_ and _ache_.

He walks the circuit around the cabin, over the creek, past the highway and up the bridge.

He looks at the road, leading out away from the town.

The scent of the kid will be long dissipated. He didn't have wrappers or layers to shed along the way, the only traces whatever he bled or drifted off of him as scent. There's no way Castiel can track this, not realistically.

Castiel walks back inside the cabin. He pulls out the newspaper that he picks up on Sundays and sits on the couch.

None of the words really settle into his brain.

* * *

The woods hold out for a few miles, and then it bleeds into a small town square- a squat building that's a town hall, a few old houses, a diner with old trucks lining the parking lot.

"It's not much," Anna says, "but it's ours. It's the pack's. I grew up here- our dad was a town founder and most of the people here knew that Cas would be the Alpha when the time came but then he went to college and..."

Her sentence trails off. Something that she's not telling him, a knowledge that Dean has to earn.

She drives a little more, and the sea comes into view and Dean feels his heart suddenly race.

He's never seen the ocean before.

He so _far_.

She stops in front of a building that looks like a refurbished house. "Come on," she says, jerking her head to the side. "Let's let Ellen take a look at you."

Dean suddenly realizes that the rest of his life is a complete enigma to him, a mystery he cannot untangle.

He's in a place he does not understand, a place that's new to him. He won't marry. He won't have babies. He won't inherit the car or the shop or the house- it's all-

"C'mon," Anna says, tapping on the window.

He's jerked out of the moment and back into the space, here.

The shoes don't quite fit, but nothing he's wearing does.


	6. Chapter 6

Ellen is a tall woman and slim. She has brown hair shot with blonde- her coloration isn't all too different from Dean's own. She wears a dark t-shirt and jeans under her white coat, a finely wrought necklace of copper and dark onyx.

She has sharp eyes- all of them do, and it's hard not to twist constantly under their scrutiny.

"I need to look at your cheek here, son," she says. "Gonna peel back the bandage. Anna tells me she put anesthetic on it, but I need to see how it looks and see whether or not it might need stitching."

Dean tries not to flinch at the mention. Tries to stay still for them.

God he wishes this was over.

She pulls back the bandage and there's a hiss as she inhales.

"Was it iron?" She asks.

Dean nods.

He thinks it was. It was black, cast iron.

"So, your risk for infection is pretty low and I'm not seeing anything that indicates that it'll inflame and get worse," she continues. "I'd like to check out your feet, though. I'm told you were wearing shoes but have some blisters? Some cuts?"

Dean nods.

She pulls his shoes off and looks at them.

"Keep them clean, don't walk super far," she says. "You should be fine."

  
_Fine_ , Dean thinks. He rolls his eyes.

"As fine as you could be, fine," she adds, huffing a small sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sound of exasperation. A sigh. Resignation.

"Anna tells me she gave you T-DAP. You know when your last round of vaccinations was?" She asks.

Dean shakes his head before throwing up four fingers.

"You think you were four?" She asks.

He nods.

Someone came through town and stopped at the church. Something for a disease that had gone through a neighboring town, something that left their legs broken, forever.

He points down to his legs, and then to a set of crutches by the door.

Ellen waits a moment. "Polio?" She asks.

Dean shrugs, unsure.

"Not much of a talker," she murmurs.

Next to him, Anna rubs his back, up and down in long, even strokes.

The motion is so familiar- something his mom used to do when he was sick. It makes something in Dean's throat ache, and then he feels the belching, acidic rising sensation, and then he's vomiting on the floor.

"Oh-kay," Anna soothes gently. "Oh-kay, Dean, let it out."

He coughs a few times, the feeling burning.

Ellen hand him a paper towel and he wipes his mouth. The scent of the vomit on the floor fills every corner of the room, and Dean feels himself shrink around the smell of the illness. Ashamed.

"I'm going to hand you a sheet of paper," she says. "I want you to fill out every piece of personal information you have. Your full name, your birthday, your SSN, the schools you went to, the town you lived in- if you remember it, put it down. Need to see if I can gather _some_ kind of record about you from nowhere."

Earlier, she weighed him and measured him. Five eleven and 140 pounds.

Dean nods. He leans against Anna- he can't help it. She smells cool and clean, like fresh lakewater. The smell of her is comforting.

"You think you'd like to stay with me?" She asks. "Stay with me and my brother? We've got a spare bedroom I think you could use. And Gabriel's a pretty good cook."

Ellen looks at her for a long moment.

"We'd be in town so there'd be plenty of people to keep an eye on him," she says. "Once he gets on his feet, we're walking distance from the school. Hell, the diner is just downstairs, he'll even have a place to work in the evenings, get together some money of his own."

Ellen looks at Dean.

She looks at  him the way the mothers in town started looking at him a few years ago. Like he is  wolf and they are shepherds.

Dean feels a sharpness inside of himself at the knowledge that he was supposed to be a wolf and now he's not even sure what he is.

They help him out of the room and he hisses as his feet hit the ground, bones and joints spreading and sore.

He sits with the sheet of paper and fills out the things he knows for certain.

_Dean Winchester_

_January 24, 1979_

_Jordan, Montana_

_Jordan Township School K-10_

_Mary, John, and Sam Winchester_

_Disowned_

_Omega_

He looks at that final word for a long moment, feels his hands shake.

He crosses it out.

Slides the paper back to Ellen and Anna.

He curls up around the sweatshirt that Castiel gave him, smells it deeply.

He wishes he could just disappear.

* * *

Castiel stands before the lake and looks at its cold, clear water for a long time.

When he dives in, it closes every pore on his body in a snap fast motion. He feels his skin grows tight, feels his blood pull away from the surface of his body, feels his heart and breath speed.

He dives down and then surfaces.

He can see straight to the bottom of the pond- clean and clear. He dredges it, he skims it. Pulls away algae and birdshit. Keeps the feed for fish low and the appeal for waterfowl doubly so.

This pond is his. His temple. His safe space. His gym.

He feels his thoughts pull away as he swims- not terribly fast but methodically. One, two, three, and breathe, one two three and breathe.

He goes back and forth, back and forth.

Dean left his scent.

He's been gone for four days now, back into town.

And his scent is still here and something about it is tugging at something in Castiel.


	7. Chapter 7

The apartment is over the diner in the center of town. They park behind the building and go through a back door, up a set of stairs to a wide, open apartment. There's a small kitchen and a couch and a bookcase. A couple of bedrooms tucked near a bathroom. Everything is painted in bright, clear colors- yellows and periwinkle. There are  dried flowers in vases and one or two boxes left out labeled  _Christmas_. It looks like a home. 

It doesn't look too different from  _his_ home, and the thought makes Dean's chest ache.

He knows he's got eight kinds of painkiller along with the chickenpox vaccine inside of him, but everything still hurts. Hurts like is has since he woke up out by the fire in the woods.

Anna points to a room and says, "Go ahead and settle in there. I'll be right opposite and Gabriel's house is across the hall."

Dean lurches toward the room, letting the shoes slip off of him.

It's the evening now. They went to an office and filled out some paper work and they stopped by a bank where Anna dropped off the duffel bag full of cash.

She gave him the key.

Dean holds it tight in his hand.

"That's your money," she'd said. "That money is yours and you'll want it one day. Anyone in the pack asks you about it other than me or Cas, you don't know anything about it. As far as they're all concerned, it doesn't exist, okay?"

Dean had nodded in reply.

She gave him a pad at the doctor's office- a pad and a pen. He hasn't felt compelled to write much.

Ellen seems stern but worried. Like she's seen something before- like she knows how this story goes. Anna seems open. And Castiel...

Dean thinks about the tense kindness in the Alpha's house. The breakfast, the lurching conversation. The hand on his brow in the dark, the dark voice like gravel. 

Dean thinks about the way power crackled off of him unintentionally, self-consciously, and anxiously. 

He falls fast on the bed. He catches the scent of the washing powder- lavender and baby powder and soap. Clear and soft and sweet.

He turns so that his burned cheek is facing upward to the air, the pressure off of the injury.

He falls asleep. Dreamlessly.

* * *

Castiel gets a call at about eight that evening. He picks up the phone on the third ring, moving quickly to his phone on the wall.

"Novak," he murmurs.

"Castiel," Anna greets.

"How is he?" He asks. It's been driving him up the wall- hard to resist the urge to call into town and ask- to drill and interrogate everyone.

"Tired," Anna answers. "Ellen says it's not likely he's got anything major- didn't pick up anything out there in the woods and it's not looking like any of his injuries are going to infect. We're going to have to catch him up on vaccines for the next few months though. He'll probably start school here next year, but I might ask Missouri about homeschooling him- he's...it might not be a good idea to throw him into a school just yet."

"He's not talking," Castiel says.

"Yeah," Anna answers. "Exactly."

"Is the money in his name?" Castiel asks.

"He doesn't have an SSN," Anna murmurs. "It's in my name but he has the key to the safety deposit box. We have to wait until the Social Security Administration gets back in touch with us before we can open it as an account and god only knows what'll happen once they get involved-"

"You worried about federals?" Castiel asks.

"Of course I'm fucking worried about federals," she answers. "Castiel, don't be foolish- everything about this looks fishy."

"Anna, we're an independent pack in the sticks- we don't even have an internet provider and we barely have enough minors in the school district to merit state spending," he sighs. "If they can get an agent out this far all they're going to gather is the fact that the kid came out of nowhere and there's no one to charge with assault. The bills were non-consecutive and unmarked and the scent went dead and..." He waits a long moment. "The scent went dead and if they want to take him out against his will we can claim dowry laws."

"You want to go there?" Anna asks. Her voice is incredulous- unsure.

"No," Castiel groans. "I don't. But he'd be better here than in an Omega's-"

"Okay," Anna interrupts. "Okay."  
There's silence on the line between them.

"Ellen still thinks this is a bad idea," she says. "She's worried you're going to do something...something foolish."

He huffs a humorless laugh. "Working from precedent, eh?"

"I can't blame her," Anna replies.

It stings, but it's true. Doesn't hurt like it used to.

"How're the woods?" She asks.

"Quiet," Castiel murmurs. "Water's cold."

"It's _February,_ " Anna replies. " _Barely_ February."

"It clears my head," he answers.

"You're insane," she shoots back.

"This isn't news," he laughs.

The silence between them is easy for a moment.

"I'll keep you updated about how he's doing," she says.

They hang up.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

He sits in the passenger seat and twitches, nervously.

The twitching, this constant and low-level vibration, is new. The silence didn't really _stop_ but the twitching is new.

"Guidance office knows about what happened and your teachers have been told, too," Anna says. "They've got my number and Ellen knows that if something happens I can be there as soon as you need me. Hardly more that four blocks away. I could probably walk here faster than this boat goes."

Four weeks and the brand has healed. Scarred, but healed. He wears the bandage anyways. He doesn't go out much- at all, really.

With the exception of two short, terrible trips to the grocery store this is the first time he's going to be out of the house.

He hasn't said anything.

Four weeks and he hasn't said anything. Four weeks and the SSN paperwork has come in.

  
_Dean Winchester_.

His eyes are green and wide and _young_.

He nods.

Flips through the small notebook he keeps in his pocket.

  
_I'm okay_ , it reads.

Anna's less   ten years older than him and she feels this maternal thing inside of her.

She leans forward and kisses him on the forehead.

Dean stumbles out of the car like a newborn foal.

She watches him go inside, and then drives to work, a nerve raw inside of her skin.

* * *

The school is bigger than any he's ever seen.

There was one school in town, and it was for everyone, from kindergarten up through senior year. This though, this one is big enough that it's for eighth grade through senior year and there are more people in this classroom than were in Dean's entire grade.

God, if he were back at home, he'd know all of them. Instead, he's here in front of these strangers, his voice fled from him and fucking-

It's hard not to touch this thing over his face.

God, he hates this.

"This is Dean," his teacher says. She's a tall woman, with dark hair and dark eyes. Junior English. A few days ago, he took tests to see where he was at, and while he's a year behind in math and Anna's said she'll handle his science and health education they decided he was a junior and not a Sophomore.

"Go ahead and take a seat," she says. "We've just started _The Great Gatsby_ , so it shouldn't be hard to catch up."

And Dean sits down and pulls out the notebook Anna gave him for class notes and writes things down.

He doesn't talk to anyone. Doesn't sit with anyone at lunch.

Does his work. Keeps his head down.

* * *

It's been a little over a month since Dean stumbled out of the woods and Castiel's officially out of shit in the pantry, so he figure he has to go to the grocery store.

Anna tells him he's in school, which means he can probably go in the early morning or afternoon and not run into the kid.

Castiel feels something warm and smoky and deep and firey inside of himself- something unavoidable and primal- when he thinks of the kid, and that's _wrong_ for so many reasons.

So Castiel knows the best thing- the _only_ thing- he can do is keep away from him.

Kid needs to heal. Sure as hell doesn't need Castiel's bullshit weighing him down.  

He fiddles with the ignition on his truck for about twenty minutes and then the son of a bitch finally starts.

He drives into town.

The grocery store is a local joint- there are rumblings of one of those big stores like Wal-Mart coming in taking over but the owner is a stubborn son of a bitch with no real interest in selling and Castiel's not really interested in taking Cain's business away by letting the store buy the land. As pack Alpha, the decision to give them pack property legally lays with him.

Nod's is a nice store, anyway, and Cain is usually pretty cool about ordering things special for him and other people.

He rounds the corner, grabbing a big bag of flour when he runs into Ellen.

"Well howdy, Alpha," she greets.

"Hi, Ellen," he greets.

They've been through this- he doesn't like the title. She insists. Something about appearances.

"You keeping up with the boy?" She asks. She pulls a container of muffin liners off of the shelf and tosses them into her basket.

"Anna keeps me updated," he answers. "I've been busy out in the sticks."

Ellen looks at him and raises an eyebrow. "I bet," she murmurs.

"Border stuff," he says.

"Mmmhm," she replies.

 Castiel pulls a few bags of chocolate chips off the shelf and tosses them into his cart.

"Ellen, I-"

"You can't hurt him," she says. "You cannot."  
"I know," Castiel answers. "And that's why I'm staying away."

Ellen understands. Something about the pheromones, something makes the attraction unavoidable and unmistakable.

"Alpha," she says, nodding. She walks away.

Castiel stands in the aisle for a long time, and then he moves on.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Third day of classes, Dean is eating along, and someone slams their tray down on the table.

Dean looks up.

Big guy. Brown eyes. Blonde hair. Sneer.

"Why don't you talk?" he barks.

Dean looks away. Picks at the lunch Anna has packed him- she's not a great cook but it was her night to cook dinner. Cold chicken with rice pilaf, but the chicken is a little rubbery, a little overdone.

Hand sweeps across the table, flinging Dean's lunch away.

"I'm talking to you," guy barks. "Omega slut think you're too good not to speak when spoken to? That how you get that thing on your face? Being a disobedient slut? Open up to the wrong dog like the bitch you are?" Guy turns, laughs next to a friend of his.

He grabs Dean's face, suddenly, and moves to tear the bandage away.

* * *

Anna's glad it's a slow day, because she leaves as soon as she gets the call. She's been waiting for this. Waiting for the panic attack, the seizure, the heat, anything.

She walks into the office and the secretary looks at her and says, "Head on in. She's expecting you."  
Naomi is a tall woman. Few years older than Anna, around Ellen's age. She's got brown hair tied into a tight, authoritarian little bun. A mouth set into a firm line.

It's just Naomi in the office.

"Dean is in the... _alternative learning center,"_ she says.

Anna knows what that is. A little white room where he can sit by himself and do his work on his own- no one else but a coach or another big guy who will watch him like a hawk.

"And Anthony is in the nurse's office with a broken nose and a split lip," she continues.

Anna sits down.

"Excuse me?" she says.

"We cannot get Dean to say anything about what might have happened. Anthony insists that he just asked to sit at Dean's table. Other students insist that Anthony threw Dean's lunch off the table," Naomi continues. "He hit Anthony four times, at which point the student was on the ground. Dean stood, spit on him, and walked himself here."

Naomi fiddles with something absently on her desk, twisting it back and forth.

"Have you considered that perhaps," she says, "Perhaps that Dean is not prepared to attend public school?"

* * *

Anna comes into the small room, small enough that Dean can smell his own sweat, the blood on his knuckles, the stale smell of being watched. Smell of the guy in the room- big beta of a guy with a buzzcut and some kind of sinus problem preventing him from breathing through his nose.

He knew there'd be trouble as soon as the guy approached him. And Anna and Gabriel will know and they'll kick him out and he'll have nowhere to go.

Anna and Gabriel will tell Castiel, Alpha of this pack, and he'll have nowhere to go.

God, he just hopes they won't brand him again.

He flinches as she approaches him and she looks at him for a long time. Her eyes are soft, though.

"C'mon, kiddo," she says. "Let's go home."

Dean stands up. Leaves with her.

* * *

Gabriel is in crisis mode when they get it. Dean's been there a little more than a month and he's learned that crisis mode for Gabriel means _cooking_. Lots of cooking.

The house smells like dried ginger and pepper and salt and roasted meat and bread- it smells _great,_ honestly.

Gabriel stands shorter than Dean and sweating before the stove.

Dean wonders how much he already knows.

No one says anything for a long time, and in a lull between straining some kind of soup and throwing something else into hot oil, he can hear Gabriel mutter, "I always _knew_ that fucker was trouble- was a sociopath since the day he was born."

Dean sits on the small couch in the small living room.

God only knows when the next time will be that he'll get to sit inside.

Anna stands in front of him and says, "Well, Naomi doesn't want you back. Frankly, I think that if _this_ is her response to what happened today...what I've gathered has happened today then I don't want you there anyway."

He looks at her, and he feels his voice rise to the top of him suddenly.

"You're not going to kick me out?" He asks, softly. His voice is crackling, static on the air.

Anna's face practically melts.

"Oh, honey," she says. "No, Jesus- Dean...no. We're not going to kick you out for defending yourself. We're not going to...no, Dean. Please."  
Dean feels something unclench inside of himself. The other shoe isn't going to drop. There is no other shoe.

He exhales, relieved, and unballs his fist.


	10. Chapter 10

They all sit at the small kitchen table. It's cramped, even though it's just the three of them. The spread of food is impressive, even by Gabriel's standards.

Gabriel, who runs the diner downstairs and then comes home and cooks enormous, rich meals. Kind of food Dean has never had before.

Back home, they only ate what could be grown in the gardens or slaughtered from the herd. Never seen grocery stores like these or dinners like these.

"Okay," Gabriel says. "Anna and I are going to help you get your GED."

Dean looks at him for a long time.

His fingers fumble with it- sign language doesn't come easily to him- but he signs out, _What_?

"It's a kind of test," Gabriel says. "Works as well a high school diploma. Means you'll be able to get jobs and you can go to college if you'd like to."

Dean nods. Pokes the food back and forth across his plate.

"And you'll work in the diner with me," he says.

Anna looks up at Gabriel, and Dean can see an entire conversation play out between the two of them, back and forth.

Anna nods. "Only when Gabriel is there, though, and no more than ten hours a week."

"Of course," Gabriel answers. "And you'll be paid, on the books."

The money is in the bank, this Dean knows. Anna knows, too. Gabriel, despite being Anna and Castiel's brother, hasn't been told.

Dean's not sure what's going to come of it.

"Man your age," Gabriel says, "should have some pocket money for seeing girls, boys, going to the movies." He grins at Anna. "You remember that age."

"I remember _you_ at that age," she murmurs. "I remember prepping for medical school and Dad dying."

Gabriel shrugs. "We both lived," he says.

" _Barely_ ," Anna jokes.

* * *

It's spring- or rather close enough to spring that Castiel has to start worrying about illegal running and hunting.

He's patrolling every day now, going through the forest and checking for tracks and bloodscent.

He comes home one evening and sits down on his couch. His feet are sore- he mixed up bloodscent for what was actually birthing and then wound up spending three hours keeping watch over a doe and her fawns. A double birth. Unusual.

He's just caught his breath, tired as hell, when the goddamn phone rings.

"Novak," he answers.

"He's been kicked out of school," Anna says.

" _What,"_ Castiel answers, exhausted as all hell.

"Anthony Sandover accosted Dean today and Dean defended himself. Little shit's nose is never gonna be straight again," she replies. "Naomi kicked him out. I can't quite blame her, really. The town doesn't know what to with him."  
Castiel feels his heart plummet through his chest.

"Please, Anna, don't- I can come get him-"

"We're gonna get him a GED and Gabriel's got him working the diner a few hours each week," she interrupts.

The adrenaline rush is making his blood go too fast. "Goddamnit," he says. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to do a pack meeting."

"Cas," Anna says, "I get that you like to do this laissez faire, really. But it's been...it's been months since most of the pack has seen you. Since _October_. And you've brought in a new pack member and didn't tell anyone and Becky had _pups_ and they haven't been christened yet because you haven't been here just-" She sighs.

Castiel closes his eyes. There's a long pause on the other end of the line.

"Anna, I'm such a fuckup," he says. "After what happened and the city and-"  
"Cas, they're not gonna fucking trust you if you don't start _talking_ to them," she says. "Please. Come to the diner. I know you're probably sick to death of cooking for yourself."

She pauses. "You're my brother. And I know that there's the border and the pack lands to take care of but...Cas. Do you really think I thought it was your fault?"  
"Anna," he says. God, it's been a long day. "Anna...I'll see you for breakfast, okay?"

She pauses a long time.

"Don't be cold around the kid, okay?" She says. "I know it's hard for you."

"Love you, Anna," he says.

They hang up.

He sighs again. Kicks off his shoes. Slouches to bed.


	11. Chapter 11

Gabriel wakes Dean up at five am.

He's usually up by six, but today is his first day working in the diner.

"Alright," he says, passing Dean a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich, "today, I'm gonna teach you how to make bread."

Thing about the diner, if Gabriel can make it there, he will. That includes pie, rolls, sandwich bread- Anna even told Dean about the few experiments in making cheese that went horribly wrong.

The kitchen smells heavily of butter and yeast. It's fragrant and comforting; it's like a blanket around him. The sensation is only exacerbated by the cave-like warmth of the kitchen.

"Sorry it's so hot," Gabriel says. "The yeast likes the heat and it's honestly more reliable than having the ovens on timers for the night. We start the dough at midnight, I scuttle downstairs and form loaves and rolls at about three and now we throw it in the oven."

Dean yawns and pulls his body around himself, cold and sleepy.

He writes something down on his pad and snaps at Gabriel three times to get his attention and slide it to him.

_Thought you were teaching me to make the bread?_

Gabriel shrugs. "I am. But your yesterday sucked and I thought you would want as much sleep as...possible," he says. He shakes his head. "Besides, cinnamon buns- more important."

He pulls over a sheet with large, swollen, risen logs of dough. Hands him a box of unscented dental floss.

"Two inches wide, eh?" He says. "And then lay them on this sheet pan, alright?"

Dean nods.

It feels good to be doing something, he realizes after about thirty minutes of cutting buns and laying them out. He likes the work. He likes to do things, it's just hard to find work to do that doesn't require that he talk to people or be next to them.

Gabriel and Anna, they treat him...normally enough. They talk to him, they talk to each other. But the people in town, they stare. The wait before they say things and then they have this _look_ on their faces.

They want to pull the bandage off, Dean can tell.

Having it off would be admitting it. It would make it _real_.

That he's _disfigured_. That he's _broken_. That they threw him out and he's only here on the charity of strangers, that it'll come any day now when they take him in the dark car and drive back out and actually _shoot_ him.

That he's this _sinful_ , _ugly_ thing. The third creation, the servant to Adam and Eve, the womb waiting to be filled.

Dean takes a deep, deep breath.

"Hey, kiddo, you doin' okay?" Gabriel asks.

Dean realizes suddenly that the burnt, iodine and salt smell is _him_.

He gets lost in his head so quickly these days.

He nods a few times. Gestures at the full pan he's rendered.

Gabriel grins. "Hey,good work kiddo," he says. "Lemme show you how to make gravy now."


	12. Chapter 12

Castiel steps into town and runs his hands through his hair.

It looks about the same as it ever does, the early signs of spring pulling up from the branches and the soil. The Christmas lights are gone, the Thanksgiving Turkeys long gone. In a month or so, the Easter Pastels will pop up but for now the shops are empty of decorations, the gazebo at the center of town bare.

Castiel shrugs into his jacket, the air a little colder here closer to the sea.

He walks into the diner and he could swear he could hear a pin drop.

Charlie, Garbriel's young waitress freezes a moment. Other people freeze mid-bite. Conversation ceases.

"Well, Hello," Castiel says.

There's a beat and then Charlie breaks into an enormous smile. "Well, hey there yourself, Alpha," she greets. "Gabriel- three egg omlette with mushrooms and double serving of bacon, half-stack pancakes."

"Cas actually swing by?" Castiel hears from the kitchen.

"Yep," Charlie says.

And just like that, the silence breaks. The stillness ceases. Charlie ushers him to a booth. Brings him a cup of coffee.

And Castiel has all of five minutes to himself before someone sits down at the table with him.

"Alpha," Becky greets, "when would be a good time for Chuck and I to have the Christening? I know that you're a busy man but the twins are nearly four months old now and I would _love_ to have them brought into the pack proper."

Castiel smiles at her gently as Charlie brings his breakfast by. "Becky, your twins are already pack, it's already done through the federal and state laws."

Becky rolls her eyes. She shifts the weight of the baby on her hip slightly, and the kid smacks their lips.

"But little Samandriel and Balthazar-" and Castiel barely restrains a _flinch_ at the names- "need to be introduced to the community proper and that means _you_ have to be there."

Everything about the tradtition of it makes Castiel incredibly uncomfortable. Reinforces those social cues...those things that the law's been fighting for years.

But there's the power in the traditions, this is something Castiel knows.

"What would be enough time I could give you?" he asks.

"Would Sunday two weeks from now be good?" Becky asks. She shifts her kid to the front of her, their little face peering over her shoulder, and she pats his back.

Castiel nods. "Yes," he answers.

"God be with you, Alpha," she replies, smiling, and dashes off, her long suffering husband following.

Chuck and Becky are good people. Strange people, but good people.  Hard not to feel bad for those kids, though. Naming children after angels is another pack tradition, one that Castiel himself is part of, but still.

Charlie slides into the booth in front of him and says, "Alpha."

Castiel takes a bite of his omlette. "Aren't you working?" He asks.

Charlie shrugs. "You see anyone who needs something?" She grins and scoots forward a bit.

"So I met this girl," she says.

"She pack?" Castiel asks.

Charlie shakes her head. "She's from the city- she's a beta and-"

"Don't see why you need to tell me about it, but congratulations," he answers.

"Well, I heard you were bringing Samandriel and Balthazar into the pack in a couple of weekends and I was wondering if-"

Castiel resists an urge to sigh heavily.

"You gonna marry her?" he asks.

"Maybe," Charlie answers.

"Pack Christening is a powerful symbol, Charlie. You willing to have your ex be knocking around the pack if it goes south?"

She shifts in the booth. "I'll uh...I'll talk to her," she murmurs.

"It's not that I don't want her here," Castiel says. "Or that I think for some reason that I can tell you what to do in your personal life- please, don't get me wrong. But if you're going to be Christening people...they've got to be permanent. It's a serious pact. It's...it's old fashioned." He sighs. "I don't want to put the two of you to this without it being...well...marry her first and then we'll talk."

Charlie smiles. Stands back up and adjusts her ponytail. "Thanks, Alpha," she says.

And she dashes off.

Barely another five minutes before another person slides into the booth with him.

"Hello, Naomi," he greets on the other side of his coffee.

"Alpha," she says.

"Please," he says, "Just Castiel."  
"Alpha, I'm sure your brother and sister have talked to you about what happened at the school," she says.

Castiel looks up at her, at her serious eyes. "They have," he says. "I'm told Dean was attacked and he responded in self-defense."

"Alpha, you cannot just bring random people into the pack and not expect there to be resist-"

"Random _omegas_ , Naomi, let's not forget what this is about," Castiel interrupts, calmly. He cuts his omlette into a bite and chews. "I'm told that Anthony Sandover used omega-specific slurs at Dean, pushed his lunch off the table, and then attempted to pull his bandage off."

"He's a young boy," Naomi says. "And you've laid out _no_ parameters about ho the community is supposed to behave around-"

"Around another young boy, particularly one who is physically disfigured and _homeless_?" Castiel interrupts. "I thought it would be clear how the community was supposed to react."

"I understand that you are trying to lead a more... _modern_ pack here, Alpha, but you cannot just-"

"He is a _boy_ ," Castiel practically growls. "He is a _boy_ who needs _help_ and that is the _end_ of the discussion, Naomi." The handle of his fork bites into the flesh of his palm. "You are lucky you still have a place in this pack given that your solution was to kick him out of school, and I am meeting with young Anthony and his parents very soon, I guarantee you."

He looks around the diner.

It is silent. Faces peer out of the kitchen to look at him, to hear him. Every eye, every silent voice.

Castiel stands. Looks at them all.

"Dean is a _boy_ ," he says, "regardless of the truths of his biology, he is a boy and a minor and he falls under the protection of our pack. Anyone uninterested in his protection is free to speak with me. I am sure you all know where I live."

He tosses thirty bucks down onto the table. He knows that they don't tip Charlie nearly enough.

"Have a good morning," he murmurs, and walks back out to the truck.

 


	13. Chapter 13

The room that Dean is staying in is some kind of old office or something, a storage room. There's a tall bookcase full of books in a dozen different languages ("A talent for tongues runs in the family," Gabriel had said, wiggling his eyebrows) and a few old posters and a set of hand weights and a record player. No tape deck, no CD player. A record player with a box full of old vinyl's.

Anna has work today and Gabriel's downstairs in the diner which means today is his. This comes a few times a week and for the most part Dean stays in the house. He'll sit in the bottom of the shower and feel the warm water around him, stripping the scent out of the air. It's not like home. It's not like being in the diner. It's not like being anywhere. It's empty. It's like being nowhere and no one.

He looks at the box for a long time.

He opens it carefully, reverently.

He flips through them. He doesn't recognize their names or the artists or bands.

He picks one at random and puts it on and lays on his bed.

* * *

Castiel grips his steering wheel firmly for a long time, letting his knuckles turn white and his nails bite into the meat of his hands.

The Sandover's have always been a thorn in his side. P.T. had been gunning for his father's position until the day his dad died and Zachariah is no better- nor has he ever been.

Now Anthony.

Now this.

Surely they've heard by now. Someone in town will have called them. Told them that he's coming, that he has _words_ for them

God, he's doing this.

He runs his hands through his hair quickly, to no avail. His overshirt is unbuttoned, as is his jacket over the top. He wished he'd had the presence of mind to wear something respectable, his trench coat at least in place of the leather jacket. He steps out of the truck and heads to the door.

He knocks.

* * *

Dean lets his eyes drift closed and he floats in the space where the sound comes from.

Woman's voice. Heavy and rich, deep and dark enough that it enters that space where it almost becomes a masculine voice. It's melancholy. It feels like he's been covered in something heavy and dear. A blanket.

He weaves his fingers into the high pile of the carpet and grips, tight. He imagines suddenly that he can feel the curvature of the earth along his spine, the rotation of it along his body.

He misses Sam. He misses his mom and his brother- hell, he even misses his dad, after all of this.

Anna and Gabriel, they're nice but he's lonely in a way he doesn't really know how to express or fix. He's empty, deep down inside of himself and he doesn't know where to begin to fix that.

The woman on the record moans softly, _I'm old enough to face the dawn_.

Dean gets off the floor. He turns off the record.

He writes a short note and tacks it onto the fridge.

_Gone out. Be back soon. Dean._

He looks at the note for a long time. He tugs on his shoes.

He steps out of the apartment.

* * *

Castiel does not sit. Neither does Zachariah, nor Anthony. It's tense, there, standing in the doorway.

Zachariah does not shut the door but none of them say anything.

Zachariah and this boy, who pretend themselves Alphas and leaders.

Castiel has to resist hard the urge to growl.

"You will cease," he says, instead. He keeps his voice low. "Your son will apologize. Your son will do work in the service of the pack. Your son will start seeing a therapist in town. These things will happen or I will repossess your property as pack property and evict you from our lands and alliances."

Zachariah is tall. Taller than Castiel. His son is similar.

Neither of them has his frozen, frigid fire, though.

There is no acknowledgement of his command. No words. But the boy looks at the floor before his father shuts the door.

Castiel has made himself quite clear.

He stands there a moment more before he climbs into the truck and drives away.

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

It's cold outside, the wind whipping off the sea to chap his cheeks, his neck, his lips. It evaporates the warmth off of any exposed skin but he really doesn't mind. It's nice, in its way. Bracing. Refreshing.

Eventually the tall evergreens give way to low, flat land populated by an abundance of sand-colored grass. There's a small wooden walkway that he uses, noting a few nests tucked in the reeds with small birds hopping too and fro.

The closer he gets to the ocean, the colder and saltier the air gets. His ears smart, and he wishes he'd thought to bring a hat. The waves lap up against the shore and driftwood litters the space- the sea powerful enough at this spit to carry it here but not strong enough to take it back.

Dean looks out at the sea. He's never seen so much water in one space, and it's chilling. He feels small against it, but not small the way he feels in town or he did at the school. Not vulnerable as this _thing_ he is- he feels unremarkable. Caught before a blind power, a devouring power that is indifferent to him.

He stands there a long time, his feet and knees aching, his skin burning from the cold, the sun tracking longer and longer shadows, filtered weakly through the heavy clouds above.

He hears a honk, suddenly, and he turns as fast as he can.

There's a truck parked not far from the road, and he sees a single arm waving to him, summoning him forward.

He lurches toward it.

* * *

It's nearly evening and the tide'll be coming in soon when Castiel sees the kid out by the shore and _shit_.

Maybe he's not keeping track of when things are coming in, maybe he's on some kind of dare- _whatever_.

He stops his car and _honks_.

The kid jerks in space, whips around.

Castiel gestures _madly_ for him to come away from the shore and the kid gets about halfway before Castiel realizes who it is.

It's the bandage that gives it away.

  
_Fuck,_ he thinks, feeling his heartbeat shudder all the way up.

Dean enters hearing distance and Castiel calls, "Tide comes in quick. Don't want you to...drown."

Dean's eyes swell briefly and he nods.

"You need a ride back to town?" He asks. "Gonna be dark before you get there."

Dean shrugs.

Castiel opens the door to his truck and Dean climbs in.

It's quick. Tense, like a drawn bowstring, silence settles over the cab.

"So uh, how's Anna and Gabriel?" he asks. "I was just heading over to say hi- I don't uh...don't come into town much."  
Dean shrugs. He fishes a paper pad out of his shirt pocket and writes across it quickly.

  
_They're good_.

Castiel reads his handwriting and nods. "Good," he answers. "They've always been good, though. I mean, Gabriel had some adventures when he was about your age and Anna had a go of it for a while but they're uh...stable. And living together has been good for them, you know? Anna's not much interested in settling down or starting a family and Gabriel's uh...Christ, that's a long story."

He clears his throat.

"Sorry, I'm...rambling," he murmurs.

Dean snorts a laugh, inelegant. Jots out on a new page- _I don't really mind._  
Castiel smiles at that.

"Anyway, I've had some business to settle here in town and it always makes the two of them damn happy to see me. They'll never let me forget that I'm the youngest," he continues.

Dean raises an eyebrow. Writes out, _But you're alpha?_  


Castiel nods. "It's...complicated," he answers. "Neither Gabriel nor Anna seems to mind. Anna's not looking for the mating pressure and Gabriel's always been too interested in gossip rather than responsibility and someone in the family had to take it, especially after Raphael-"

He cuts off, feeling the words drop off inside of him.

"Sorry," he mutters. "Uh, let me turn on the radio."

It's quiet but for the low mutter of The Go-Go's in the cab.


	15. Chapter 15

Castiel has a way of talking, of getting going and then cutting _right off_ that reminds Dean of Sam.

Sam's four years younger than him- twelve in a few months- and he's smart as hell, but he's also _crafty._ Sam tells Dean things he wouldn't say in front of anyone else- especially Mom or Dad.

Sam _told_ Dean things-

It hits him like a goddamn _truck_ , in the cab of Castiel's truck driving through the woods to the main heart of town. Dean gasps for air, pained and aching.

"Dean?" Castiel says. "Dean, are you okay?"

Dean fumbles his seatbelt off and Castiel pulls the truck to the side of the road- the lights from town just becoming visible.

Dean falls on his knees out of the truck and vomits.

His brother. His little brother, his brilliant little brother who's so short and so skinny and so _angry_ \- what if they do this to _him_?

He coughs the bile out of his throat, burning, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

The engine cuts but the headlights stay on. Dean hears Castiel climb out and walk around over to him.

"Dean, are you okay?" he asks. His voice is low and serious. "Are you not feeling well?"

Dean can't say it- words caught inside of him near the nausea and the panic. But he can scream, can summon this animal _howl_ inside of himself.

He fists his hands in his hair and screams like the day he was born, shaking. Unsteady.

He screams and screams and his hands wander down to his goddamn _bandage_ and he rips it off and he throws it.

He clambers up and he punches the door to Castiel's truck.

"Dean?" Castiel barks and Dean turns and _looks_ at him _._  


And Castiel looks so steady. Looks like a rock.

He reaches forward and grabs him, burying his face in his chest.

His arms reach around him reluctantly, tenderly.

"Sam," he croaks. His voice is hardly above a whisper. " _Sam_. Sam."

Castiel doesn't say anything. He doesn't ask any questions.

It's a blessing, really.

Dean's not sure he has the voice to answer them.

* * *

Dean's tears are hot on his chest, and despite the fact that they're outside and a doe had birth about two miles away and the ocean is so close he can still hear it and it's windy as hell, the _scent_ of Dean is enormous and overwhelming.

The mineral quality of his tears, the iron smell of his blood from the still raw scar on his face, the bitter and _alarming_ smell of distress and the acrid scent of stomach acid- underneath is that current of _omega_. Something like molasses, something like fresh earth.

Dean keeps repeating a name. He'd vomited and screamed and now he's murmuring a single name, over and over.

_Sam, Sam, Sam._

Dean pulls away suddenly and wipes at his eyes.

Coughs a few times.

The scar is huge. Enormous. It's mostly healed by now, just a few spots on it oozing blood and plasma weakly. It's puckered and red, still fresh. In years it may turn white but for now it is still angry and bright. His whole face is flushed and damp.

He turns away and Castiel walks back to the driver's seat.

  
_A brother_ , he remembers. _Dean has a brother_.

Sam.

He swallows. Dean climbs back into the car.

They drive the rest of the way into town without incident.

Castiel tries not to breathe too deeply, that purely _omega_ smell filling the cab.

 


	16. Chapter 16

The apartment is just as small as he remembers. Hardly feels different, even with the extra jacket on the coat hook or the extra place at the table. Smells like Gabriel, too- that spicy, rich smell he brings with him everywhere. Cayenne and white pepper; rosemary and cumin.

"Oh hey," Gabriel greets. "I see you found Dean."

Dean flushes and pulls his notepad out of his pocket. Writes, _Sorry_.

Gabriel shakes his head. "Nah, I understand cabin fever. Hell, everyone in this family understands cabin fever."

It's a dig, and Castiel knows it, but he also knows Gabriel is playing fair. Gabriel's had his adventures; he's been public with them, too. Hell, after he came back from Sri Lanka with a wedding ring and a tattoo, everyone has known about Gabriel's adventures.

The wedding ring's gone now, but Castiel isn't so sure about the enormous, black skinned woman with the necklace of skulls and skirt of arms he had on his back.

Castiel's adventures were just a lot more...scary.

Gabriel's eyes are kind when he gives Castiel a hug. "How you been, bro?" he asks. Dean tiptoes off somewhere, leaving Castiel with his brother in this tiny kitchen, smelling heavily of paprika and beef.

Castiel shrugs. "Been better, been worse," he answers. "Good births this year. There will be good hunting in the fall."

Gabriel nods.

"How has the diner been?" he asks.

"Well, when you're the only restaurant in town, it's not hard to outpace the competition," he answers.

Castiel feels himself blush. He _abhors_ fast food and no one else has expressed real interest in starting a place up.

Gabriel smiles again, though. "You know that I wouldn't tease you if I didn't love you, right?" Gabriel says.

Castiel smiles. "Yeah," he murmurs. "I know."  
"Good," Gabriel says. "Where'd you find him?" He asks, jerking his head toward the closed door Dean disappeared behind.

"The beach," Castiel answers. "The tide was coming in- I didn't even know it was _him_."

Gabriel nods. "And the uh...?" He gestures to his face.

Castiel inhales. "Driving back," he replies. "He's upset. I think about his brother."  
"He has a _brother_?" Gabriel asks.

Castiel nods. "He's only mentioned him in passing, really. When he woke up and then tonight is the only time, really."

" _Shit,"_ Gabriel murmurs. "You think he might be...?"  
"I think that's what Dean is concerned about," he answers.

Anna comes into the apartment. "Oh! Castiel!" she exclaims. "Sorry, I- it was a long day at work."

She hugs him briefly. Castiel smiles into her hair.

This is his _pack_. His first pack. His blood, his flesh, his family. And as long as he lives, this is who he'll belong to. Deep down. There'll come a day when there will be a younger man, a stronger man, a wiser man, and he'll take the town pack from him. And things will change.

But he'll always have Anna and Gabriel, who've been here with him through it all.

Anna looks at him expectantly and Castiel sighs.

"Still?" He asks.

"I know you're counting," she says.

"Two years, two months, eight days," he answers. "Clean two years, two months, eight days."  
Anna smiles again.

She's right. He's still counting.

The door to Dean's room opens. He walks out, the bandage replaced over his cheek.

"Just in time," Gabriel announces. "Let's eat!"  


* * *

Dinner is quiet. Good. Anna and Gabriel, they tease Castiel gently. _Should come around more_. _My own brother, a stranger in my home_.

Castiel smiles, though. Laughs. They eat, the food Gabriel has made dense and tasty.

It's a safe feeling. Like home.

Gabriel packs him a tupperware and sends Castiel on his way home with a hug and a smile.

Dean scribbles out on a pad quickly, _Thanks_.

Castiel takes it. Tucks it into his pocket and nods.

He leaves.

"He's a good guy," Gabriel says.

Dean heard something from his room. Something that caught his ear.

He writes on his pad, _Clean?_  


Gabriel takes it. Looks at it for a long minute and says, "Hey, come downstairs to the diner with me. Show you how to prep starter."

Dean goes down the stairs with him, to the diner kitchen.

Gabriel flicks on the lights and pulls out a bowl. Starts measuring and mixing and says absently, "Castiel went away to school. And at first it was good. Was real good. And then he fell in with a bad crowd."

He pauses a long while. Mixes the dough.

"I won't lie to you, Dean," he says. "Pot? Smoke all the pot you can stand. Smoke pot 'till you're blue in the face- I mean, not literally. And as long as someone around you has the presence of mind to keep you away from the knives, psychedelics are pretty sweet, too." He pauses.

Dean looks at him, his brown eyes so light they look golden. Serious. "Don't play with heroin," he says.

He looks away. Mixes some more. "Anyway, this guy Dick- that's his _real name_ , by the way. Like that wasn't a red flag enough. This guy Dick, he gets Castiel into some real, real bad trouble. Dad and our older brother, Raphael, they go to the city to get him out of it and uh..." He pauses. It's heavy. Somber.

Dean thinks he can fill in what's inside of that pause.

"It was raining. Castiel was sick real bad and getting worse. They didn't see the car coming," Gabriel continues.

He pauses again. "But Castiel, he goes to rehab. He comes out clean. Two years, two months, eight days."

Gabriel looks back up at him. "I'm telling you because everyone who lives here, they know. Castiel became Alpha not too long after and it's not like it's info he hides. You deserve to know.  But he doesn't like to talk about it. Lotta people like to have a lotta opinions about it- I mean, Castiel was pretty well liked in high school even if he was more quiet than he is now, but no one really pegged him for...Raph wanted it. A lot of people think he would have done a good job, once Dad stepped away. Lotta people, lotta opinons, and anyone who brings it up outside of family? Tactless." He dusts his hands with flour and emerges them into the rough dough that's forming. "Tactless assholes."

Dean watches Gabriel make the rest of the dough in silence.

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

It's about two am by the time the starter is finished and something resembling a dough can be risen. Dean is exhausted, yawning.

"Go get some shut eye, kid," Gabriel says. "It's a good five miles out to the beach. You must be bushed."

Dean shrugs. He slumps up the stairs and into the warm apartment.

It smells like leftover dinner, it smells like Anna and Gabriel, and it smells a little different, too. A new smell, but familiar. Warm and woodsy, like burnt wood and smoke and licorice. Dean inhales it long and slow and lets it settle over him. He kicks off his shoes and slouches to his bed. He falls onto the covers, fully dressed, and burrows into his pillows.

His sleep his dreamless.

* * *

Spring comes suddenly, like it always does. The bulbs push up out of the dirt one day, the grass greens the next, and then Castiel is packing his woolen coat into his closet and making his excursions into the woods in only a flannel shit and shorts. He likes spring; there's lots to do which means he doesn't have to go into town as often.

He'll have a town meeting after Easter and all will be well.

That's the plan, until he gets a call from Becky.

"Alpha," she greets, "I know you're busy what with it being Spring and the wood and lands needing your attentions, but-"  
"The _Christening_ ," Castiel sighs. "Oh, Becky, I'm so sorry."  
"We've got the chapel for Sunday," she says. "And Gabriel's agreed to officiate, even if most of the people in town don't think he's ordained after-"  
"I'll be there," Castiel says firmly. "I'll be there, swear to God, Becky."

He hangs up after hearing twenty minutes about the twins and how they're doing, and then he falls back on the couch and sighs, heavily. He places the phone back on the cradle and exhales, long and steady.

"Okay," he says.

He looks at his truck. He slips into his worn out shoes and drives into to town.

* * *

Working at the diner has been nice. He washes dishes, he buses tables, he helps Gabriel bake bread. He works more than ten hours a week but Anna doesn't mind and he gets homework done and it's not like he's interested in talking to anyone in town. It's not like he's interested in talking, really.

He's closing, mopping up the floor and wiping the tables, and when he finishes, he walks upstairs where Gabriel has made dinner.

And Castiel is there.

He hasn't seen him in _weeks_. Not since the last dinner.

"Dean!" He exclaims. His voice is gravely but bright. Glad to see him.

Dean's heart races.

"Dean, I've been talking with Gabriel and we've had an idea," he says.

Dean fishes out his pad of paper and writes, _Wouldn't want you to hurt yourselves, now._  


Gabriel cackles at that and Castiel rolls his eyes.

"This Sunday," Castiel says, "we're doing a pack christening. And I want you- we want you to be formally made part of the pack."

Dean frowns. Writes, _What?_  


Castiel looks like he ran up here- his hair is a mess, sticking up in every which direction. He's not wearing a shirt, just a flannel overshirt draped over his body. He looks sweaty. He _smells_ , sweaty.

For whatever reason, Dean feels his blood rushing in his ears. Flushed.

"It's a public ceremony, like a baptism," he says. "You're presented before the pack, you're acknowledged, and before everyone, they're made to know that you belong. That you're ours."

Dean notices suddenly that Castiel can't be much older than he is. He is young, his skin is clear and fine, his eyes are bright, he looks...strong and beautiful.

"Dean?" Gabriel asks. "You with us?"

Dean blushes suddenly. _Bathroom_ , he writes, and the dashes out of the room.

Dean flicks on the sink and runs the cold faucet over his wrists. He feels very _warm_ all of the sudden, his heart it too fast, his blood is too hot. He inhales, he exhales, he tries to calm down, but something drives his heart rate up higher, higher. He runs his wet hands through his hair, he looks at his crotch and shit-

  
_Shit_.

Shit, he's hard. He's hard in his jeans in the bathroom and this is a _terrible_ time.

He shudders, he closes his eyes. He tries to think unsexy thoughts- the smell of the grease at the end of the day, the diner bathroom, the godawful scabs that are just now healing on his face- it all does nothing. He's still practically fucking _tenting_ in his jeans and he's suddenly so horny- so desperate. He wants, fucking _hell_ he's electrically, painfully fucking turned on all of the sudden.

And he must have been in the bathroom longer than he thought he was because there's a knock on the door and Gabriel going, "Dean, you okay in there?"

His notepad is in the other room and he can't- his voice is gone, too.

There's another knock.

Dean turns off the sink.  
He opens the door.

There's a frozen moment and then Gabriel's eyes grow enormous and Dean hears a low, steady growl from Castiel across the room.

"Cas-"  
"Yeah," he says. He storms out of the apartment and Dean feels like he's lost an arm.

He feels an alien, animal sound fall out of his throat.

"Dean," Gabriel says slowly, carefully. "Dean, do you remember what Anna and Ellen told you? Told you about what _might_ happen?"

Dean feels so warm, so warm and so _strung_.

"Dean, do you remember what Anna told you about _heat_?" Gabriel asks.

 


	18. Chapter 18

Castiel walks out of the apartment, taking gulping, huge breaths. Enormous breaths, cold air shuddering into his lungs like ice, knocking around through his lung tissue tearing great holes through them. Voice growling through the breaths- shrieking, shattered, shattering, glittering strangulation.

He walks away. Fuck the truck, fuck it. He gets in that car, he’s gonna go too fast, he’s gonna drive into a damn tree and break his neck. He feels his feet slip in his shoes- loose sandals that dry quickly, leaving his toes soaked. He walks, he storms, he jogs, he runs- runs flat out away from that town towards the woods, towards his house. As fast as he can.

If he stays there, he’ll do something. He’ll do something and the kid is in no condition-

He’ll do something and Castiel won’t be that man. That Alpha.

* * *

 

Gabriel says the words and Dean feels it float through his head, looking for something to connect to, something that it’ll mean.

“Dean,” Gabriel repeats, softly. “Dean, I need you to step out of the bathroom, okay? We need to get you somewhere to the clinic.”

The idea connects, suddenly, and Dean feels the peculiar vertigo of his blood going to ice before soaring back to fire.

He shakes his head. He shakes his head and feels his fingers slip over the slick sweaty surface of his flushed skin, over his arms, to his chest, over his heart.

He shakes his head, he shakes his head because it was a mistake. It was a mistake, a mistake, this isn’t him, this isn’t him. In a few years when he can prove it he can go back home, he can go back, he can-

He rips the bandage off of his face and claws at it, at this mark on him, this thing because it’s not enough that everyone can see it, can see this thing that he is, god damn he’ll rip it off his face before this happens, before they fuck him, before they render him fucked and enormous and helpless, before it catches, before-

Gabriel grabs his hand and Dean can just barely see his finger enough to see the blood on them.

“Dean,” he says, “Dean, no one is going to hurt you. At the clinic, Ellen has something that might make you feel better but she has to give it to you there, okay? I just want to take you down to my car, okay Dean? We’ll put you in a big sweatshirt, we’ll drive fast down the backroads, no one will see you. And when we’re done, you’ll come home and sleep and I’ll make you pie until your pants burst, okay, kiddo? But I need you to calm down. I know this is scary. I know you’re scared.” His eyes are whiskey colored brown, golden and bright like the light before a storm. Warm. Safe.

Gabriel’s voice is soft. “Dean, I need you to be brave for me, okay? I know you’re scared, but I need you to be brave.”

And Dean looks at Gabriel and he nods a couple times, a little woozy.

“Okay,” he says. “Can you sit on the couch? I’m gonna grab a damp rag for your fingers, okay?”

He flutters away but he’s back quickly, cleaning him up as he feels like he’s going to incinerate right then and there.

When they stand back up to head downstairs, Dean feels a dampness like he’s wet his pants. He knows that’s not what it is, knows it’s that other thing, that thing that Anna told him about. He grits his teeth and tries not to feel it. Tries not to feel anything that’s happening downstairs, actually. Tries not to feel his blood like acid, tries not to feel that want, aching inside of him like a broken mouth, a suffering.

In the front of Gabriel’s tiny Honda, he just tries not to melt but also not to be.

* * *

 

When Castiel gets home, he stands in his doorway for a solid minute, catching his breath, before the phone rings.

He darts over to it and picks it up. “Castiel,” he answers.

“Ellen bought blockers as soon as Dean came to the clinic the first time,” Anna says on the other end of the line. His voice has the uncomfortable timbre of compulsion to it and he feels a stab of guilt about it. “She’s given him a dose that’ll put him out for most of it, stem the slick production to something pretty manageable, and the sleep will take care of his libido. He might have a fever for a few days after but he’ll be alright.”

“It won’t affect his system long term?” He asks.

“It might stunt his growth and affect his later in life fertility but I figure preventing the kid from tearing a hole in his damn face out of traumatic response is the bigger priority,” she answers.

“Fuck,” Castiel murmurs. “I had hoped-”

“Yeah, well, life doesn’t work out that way,” she interrupts.

There’s a heavy pause over the line.

“Poor kid tore himself up before Gabriel could calm him down,” she says.

Castiel falls back onto the couch. He scrapes his fingernails over his scalp.

“He should be on his feet in about nine to twelve days,” she says.

Castiel sighs. “Thanks, Anna,” he says.

He hangs up. He strips his clothes. He walks to the lake.

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

When Dean wakes up next, it’s in a cool dark room that doesn’t smell like anything. He feels hot and sleepy and sticky, but that urgent feeling, like there was a car battery linked up to his heartbeat, is gone.

He feels heavy, a little like he did when he came out of the woods to Castiel’s cabin. Like he can’t be warm enough, like he can’t really move that much. He sits up anyway, leaning heavily on the back of his hands and looks around the dim room. He’s in the clinic; there’s the low murmur of a heart monitor that he absently notices is connected to him.

“Hey there,” Anna says next to him. She’s sitting in a wooden chair next to the cot he’s on. “How you feeling?”  
Dean shrugs, non-committally.

Anna nods. “You’re gonna feel about like this for the next week or so. You’ll be tired- sleep for most of it- but you’re not gonna...it’s not gonna be heat, heat. Okay?”

Dean nods, but he’s not real sure what she’s said. He wants to go back to sleep, actually.

“I’m gonna take the next week or so off and keep an eye on you,” she says. “We’re gonna need to put an IV in you so you don’t dehydrate, okay?”

Dean rumbles noncommittally and slips back under.

* * *

 

Every time that he wakes up over the next few days, it’s dark. He’s in his room, he’s under the blankets, there’s an IV stand next to the bed, and it’s dark. Sometimes Anna is there. Sometimes Gabriel is there.

Dean wonders absently where his mom is every once in a while. Dean wonders where Castiel is.

His sleep is dreamless.

* * *

 

Castiel jogs. Castiel swims. Castiel climbs trees. Castiel chases deer through the wood. Castiel chops down a tree or two. Castiel hauls wood to his woodpile, stocking for the fall. Castiel digs a drainage ditch away from the cabin, four feet deep and eight feet long.

Castiel moves and moves and moves, and by Wednesday, five days later, his every muscle is sore as hell.

He wakes up that morning and stretches as much as he can, rolling his shoulders and rotating his neck slowly. He groans.

He steps out of the cabin to head toward the lake for a swim when he hears a honk and Anna’s there.

“Get decent,” she shouts. “I brought you lunch.”

“It’s nine am!” Castiel cries.

“Breakfast then- just put clothes on! I don’t look at dicks I don’t get paid to look at!”

Castiel rolls his eyes and throws on a pair of pants. By the time he’s dressed, Anna is inside and unpacking a series of tupperware.

“Gabriel?” He asks.

“He’s stress cooking,” she says. “Blockers put Dean effectively into hibernation. Weird shit and Gabriel’s handling it about as well as he handles anything.”

Castiel grabs a container of what looks like risotto and grabs a fork from his drawer and digs in. “Well,” he answers. “At least he’s still on this continent.”

“I’ve already had to convince him not to get more piercings,” she continues. “I’m worried that if I stick around though, he’ll go out and get a new tattoo. Without me there, he feels the need to be responsible. Barely leaves the room. It’s actually sweet. He really likes Dean. I mean, I do too, but Gabriel likes having someone around who can’t tell him his jokes are shitty or that he put too much caramel in something.”

Castiel snorts at that.

“Dean likes him too,” she presses on. “Don’t get me wrong. I think Dean makes Gabriel feel like a grownup and Gabriel makes Dean feel...human,” she ends with a resigned little shrug.

Castiel nods. The food is good, even if it’s barely warm at this point.

“So,” he says. “Dean’s doing well?”

Anna smiles a little. “As well as can be expected. He’s been asleep for damn near all of it. Wakes up for about ten minutes at a time every eight or nine hours. Pees and falls back out. When he’s lucid he asks for his mom. And for you.”

“He’s speaking?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she answers as she tears into what looks like falafel. “The mutism is traumatic. When he’s so far out, it’s like he’s not accessing the trauma.” She chews for a moment. “His cheek is healing alright. His scratching isn’t going to scar, which is good.”

Castiel nods a little. “You willing to drive him into the city? Take him to a therapist?” He asks. “I’ll pay. He’s pack and this is what pack funds are for.”

Anna shrugs. “I’d like to, but I’m not sure what good it would do at this point. Kid can barely bus tables without having a panic attack; I’m not sure the city would be right for him.” She pauses. “I’ll see if there’s anyone who would be willing to drive out here.”

Castiel nods again.

“He asks for me?” He asks, softly.

Anna nods.

It’s quiet for the rest of the time that she’s there.

* * *

 

When Dean wakes up on Sunday, he feels like he’s run a marathon even though he’s just been laying there. He sits up, the room empty. The curtains are closed and it’s dim. Dark.

The IV is out of his arm, which is good. There’s a bandaid where it was. His legs feel unsteady under him, but he manages to stumble out of the doorway and to the living room. He collapses onto the couch.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he hears Gabriel say. “How we feeling?”

 

 


	20. Chapter 20

On top of the couch he feels so heavy, like all of his bones have been removed and most of his muscle mass has been replaced with lead. He can feel himself sinking into the couch, bending the weight of it with his own body, gravity working to drag him closer to the center of the earth. He also feels dizzy, like he can’t quite figure out where up or down is. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe through it, but it’s hard. He can feel the claws of sleep still so tight around himself, grasping at him, and with his eyes shut it threatens to drag him back under. He doesn’t want to sleep, though, especially because it’s so hard to tell how long he’s been out. The calendar in his room is marked for Sunday but nothing about that feels real to him.

More so than usual, nothing about this feels real.

“Dean-o,” Gabriel says, nearby. Behind the couch. Above him. He thinks through the specific directions of where things are, where he must logically be in space. It helps, a little.

“Dean,” Gabriel repeats. “C’mon kid, I need to know how you’re feelin’. Anna left me with a laundry list of stuff I could give you but you gotta tell me how you’re doing.” He feels the notebook and pen get placed gently into his hands, but he hears the real worry that he’s going to fall back asleep.

“Dizzy,” he murmurs. The words aren’t heavy, aren’t weighing his tongue all the way down to the bottom of his mouth. It’s a change. It’s weird.

“Throwing up dizzy or falling down dizzy?”

“Both?” He answers.

He hears footsteps away from himself and then Gabriel says, “I need you to sit up kiddo. Got a couple of pills for that right here. And hey, maybe you’ll feel up to solid food once they kick in? The duck confit is probably about right.”

Dean swallows the two pills, and when he opens his eyes again, he can gather from the shadows in the living room that it’s about mid afternoon. Gabriel looks pretty tired, like he hasn’t been sleeping well. His hair is greasy, dark shadows under his eyes.

“You were out a little longer than we thought you would be,” he says. “Gave us a little scare there for a moment. Still, though, one or two days out longer than the week the box said- not too bad, all things considered.”

Dean rolls time back through his head. He has a few vague memories of going to the bathroom and changing his clothes- a single shower but he’s not sure how long ago that was.The last thing he remembers, distinctly, is Gabriel pulling him out of the bathroom.

He runs his fingers over his face, brushing over more bandages. The feel of latex on his left side is more natural that the feel of skin at this point. He looks back at Gabriel.

Gabriel smiles a little, and it’s a shattered thing. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You’ve retained your devilish good looks for another day.”

Dean’s tired, but most thirsty. He gestures at his throat, makes a rough motion for drinking. Gabriel nods and hands him a bottle of gatorade.

It feels cold and sweet in him, rushing out a taste of iron and snot. He coughs a few times after drinking it, feeling that loosen. He’s still tired, though. Still feels heavy and thick.

He yawns, expressively.

“Hey now, tiger,” Gabriel murmurs. “Don’t want you working too hard all at once.”

He gets up and tosses him a blanket.

Dean feels himself slip back to sleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one is so short. the school year is kicking my ass. more soon, i promise.


	21. Chapter 21

Gabriel watches Dean fall asleep on the couch, and then he watches him a little longer.

The bandage is bulky over his cheek. Gabriel can't decide if the bandage is worse than the brand- either way people will stare ( _they do, on the few times every few days or so they can get Dean to leave the building or go outside of the diner kitchen, they stare)._ With the bandage, they whisper, they wonder. With the brand, they just _pity_ the poor kid. And there's nothing that Dean wants less than pity, this Gabriel knows. Dean doesn't want to be seen as fragile or _changed_. He wants to be seen as strong and competent. It's hard to gather information about who Dean was _before_ , but he had responsibility. It's written in the way he carries himself, in the way he nods, seriously, when Gabriel asks him to do something or shows him something to be done.

It's an intense quality. A hard quality.

Apparently, Dean has a brother, a younger brother.

Gabriel turns away and walks back into the kitchen. He quietly pulls a container from the fridge and dumps it into a saucepan.

When Dean wakes up, he'll want something to eat. Good thing he made soup earlier in the week.

* * *

The heat's passed and Dean's awake and moving around and Castiel still can't bring himself to call or come into town.

The last time he was there, the last time he saw him- god, Castiel can't bear the thought of what happened last time, of doing that to Dean again.

So he stays away.

He goes into town but he keeps away from the diner. He keeps his conversations with Anna and Gabriel brief and perfunctory. He christens Becky's children into the pack, he chops wood and watches the forest and the pack.

The seasons change, Spring bleeding into scorching summer rich with the screaming song of cicadas. And Castiel works and becomes sun-tanned and muscle aching. Works in his garden and cans and collects wild honey from hives hidden in the woods. And summer slowly becomes Fall, and he hunts and he makes jerky and soon it's been near three months before he's been into town and he gets a knock on his door, mid-December.

And it's _Dean_.

Castiel stands there, silent, for a full minute, looking at him.

He's taller, for one. He looks less frail, like he's been eating regularly, but he still ducks his head under, avoids eye contact. The bandage is still huge over his face, but he's...he's definitely _older_. Older and more breathlessly, terribly, frighteningly beautiful.

And as sharply as that day, months ago now, Castiel _desires_ him _._  


  
_"_ Hello, Dean," he says instead of _let me put a pup inside of you, let me make you a part of me, let me protect you, let me hold you forever, and keep you warm and safe._  


Dean shrugs, a single shouler dodging forward.

He hands him a slip of paper.

  
_You've been ignoring me_ , it reads. _For like, five goddamn months or some shit._  


Castiel looks up at Dean.

"Dean," he says, and he holds up a finger and gives him another slip of paper.

  
_What the fuck_ , the next one says.

Castiel sighs a single, sharp breath and continues, "Dean, you have to-"  
Dean gives him _another_ slip of paper.

It's infuriating, in a strange way, to be so consistiently interrupted by someone who is effectively mute.

_Gabriel and Anna_

_and Missouri_

  
_want me to make friends,_ it reads _._

_I don't really get anyone else_

_in_ _town and they were fucking pushy._   


 Castiel looks at the paper for a long moment.

"You're very thorough," he comments.

Dean grins slightly, his mouth quirky upwards at one corner. The expression is boyish. He pulls out a pad of paper and a pencil and writes quickly, _I've got practice._  


Castiel looks at Dean, on his doorstop again a little under a year since he first showed up.

"Come in," he says.

And Dean enters.

 

 

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

Dean looks around Castiel’s cabin.

The walk from in town wasn’t too long- it came easily enough and the ground was easy under his feet. Anna and Gabriel were generally willing to give him a pretty big leash and he’d left a note saying he’d probably be back late tonight or early tomorrow. It’s about two hours of walking on the back trails, where he won’t run into anyone. The likelihood that someone else would show up on the roads is pretty slim, anyway, but on the back trails? Mid-December? No chance at all. And even with the blocker in his system, his heat is coming up soon and its hard to tell who would pick up on it- who would realize it on him and force him-

“Sorry it’s not clean,” Castiel says. “It’s normally just me and I’ve been disorganized for the past few weeks.”

Dean looks at him and raises an eyebrow.

Castiel sighs. “A bear had cubs, out of season,” he says. “I’ve been checking her den to make sure they’re all well and that means strange nights and weird hours.” He smiles a little, mouth quirking up at the edge just barely. “I probably smell terrible- I’ve been lake bathing but that only does so much to get the scent off.”

Dean shrugs. He hopes it shows what he means- that it’s not too bad, that he doesn’t mind. THe thought is so minor, he’s not gonna bother writing it down.

“Have you eaten?” Castiel asks. “I have some duck that’s still warm and some carrots in last year’s honey.”

Dean shrugs again.

“So you haven’t eaten,” Castiel murmurs and he moves over towards the small kitchen set up in the corner and pulls a plate from a rack. “If Anna and Gabriel find out that you’ve been all the way here on foot and I didn’t feed you, they’ll skin me alive.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds but for the sound of Castiel fiddling in the kitchen.

It’s warm inside, too. Dean feels his skin flush, sensation rush back to it in strange new waves.

“It’s not too cold,” he murmurs. “I don’t have a microwave but if you set it near the fire for a little bit, it should warm right up.”  
It smells good, rich and meaty. Dean pushes it around the plate for a moment before taking a bite.

“Gabriel used to come out and help me process them during the fall, when they’re in season. He's been busy though," Castiel murmurs. "That's good for him. When he's bored...it's a mess."

Dean smiles a little around the food in his mouth. He pulls his pad out and fishes a pen out of his pocket.

  
_I shudder to think,_ he jots down.

Castiel smiles at it, his eyes crinkling a little at the edges. "You should ask Anna about when he shaved his eyebrows off. Mother was furious."

None of them say much about their mom. Dean's noticed this.

They don't ask too many questions about his family, and he doesn't ask too many about theirs, in return.

Castiel chuckles again. "There was also the time- he'd been arrested and he found out that the bars in the cell, the one next to the wall, if he sucked in his stomach just right he could slip through. We got this call from Benny, in the middle of the night," he starts laughing, out loud, "asking us if we knew where he was and Father, when he said 'jail?'"

He laughs so hard his face flushes slightly and he crumples at the waist. "It was wonderful," he says, when his breath comes back.

Dean can't help but smile, a little wider. This is the most relaxed Castiel's ever been around him, the most...easy. It's nice.

He looks at Dean for a moment before coughing a couple of times.

"Um," he says, "excuse me."

He steps outside, leaving Dean in front of the fire, alone in the cabin.

* * *

The air is cold, and it makes him feel _clean_. Makes his head stop spinning, gets rid of that fucking _drunk_ feeling that's been hanging around since Dean sat in front of the fire. Made the whole damn cabin smell like him- contented and eating and interested and happy.

Goddamn.

Castiel takes another deep breath.

Got giggly in there. Fucking, foolish.

"Can't do that to the kid," he murmurs. "Jesus, not even seventeen yet."

He closes his eyes and breathes.

He goes back inside.

* * *

Dean's washing his plate at the sink when Castiel comes back in.

Feels like it was forever, just him in there.

God, he feels so guilty. He knows Castiel's been avoiding him, that he makes him _uncomfortable_ but he can't fucking figure out how to stop.

Because as weird- as fucking... _fucked up_ as it makes him feel, he _wants_ Castiel. Wants to make him laugh, wants to be around him and his smell and his deep voice and rare- _brilliant_ \- smiles.

But Castiel comes back inside for now, and he says, "Sorry, got a little dizzy- needed some air."

And he smiles again, slightly.

"I don't uh...have a tv or anything. But I do have scrabble?"

 

 

 


	23. Chapter 23

 

Castiel pulls out a battered box- it’s held together with duct-tape and hot glue. The board is similarly repaired, and the letter bag is a little more full than it should be, the set cannibalized from multiple other games. Castiel remembers the big games, lasting for hours and hours, with Raphael and Gabriel and Anna and Father, extending the board outward with a sheet of paper drawn on underneath.

He tosses the bag to Dean. “Seven tiles,” he says. “You go first.”

Dean raises an eyebrow at him. Writes on his pad, _You think I haven’t been playing with Gabriel._ He writes.

Castiel grins. “Gabriel is much better than I am,” he says. “But I grew up playing with both of them, and Anna cheats.”

Dean smiles again, and then slips the letters into the tray and looks at them intently. His brows furrow. He passes the bag to Castiel, and Castiel draws his own letters.

-

  
_You can’t play “matroyshka,” it’s a non-English word you jerk,_ Dean writes on his pad of paper, four turns in. _If you’re not letting me have “Afrikaans,” you don’t get “matroyshka.”_

Castiel smiles at him and pushes some tiles around on the board. _Sorry,_ he spells out.

Dean looks at it and he smiles in return. He grabs letters from _jojoba_ and _kerchief_ on the board and spells out  _jerk_ again.  

Castiel pulls more letters from across the board, spells out _Having fun_.

  
_Is that a question,_ Dean pokes into the letters, _or a statement_.

  
_No question marks in Scrabble_ , Castiel replies. He reaches into the bag and fishes out more letters. _Glad you came over_.

Dean pokes at his earlier words.

Castiel points to the _statement_ portion. _Good to see you_ , he spells out. _Good company_ , he continues, and then _, I get lonely out here._

  
_Why don't you come into town_ , Dean spells.

Castiel shrugs and pokes the letters to say, _Not old fashioned._ He pauses. _Want them to lead themselves._

Dean raises an eyebrow.

  
_They want me to be one of those alphas_ , he spells out. _Controlling._

Dean looks at him for a long time, his green eyes serious. Grim.

He licks his lips. Bites his bottom lip.

  
_Thank you_ , he answers.

Castiel looks at him for a long time.

"Why are you here, Dean?" He asks. "Really?"

Dean looks at him again.

Spells out in the letters, _Heat is coming_.

"Dean, I _can't_ ," Castiel begins, while Dean rearranges more letters.

_I'll be under again. Suppressed. When I was under last time, I needed you. It hurt._

On the wooden tiles, with none of the shape or warmth of Dean's handwriting, it looks so...stark. So broken. And Castiel feels a kind of guilt because of that.

"I didn't...I was scared," he says. He inhales softly, his hands fluttering on his thighs. "Dean, I am...terrified of hurting you."

  
_I know_ , Dean spells _._ _Trust you_.

 

Castiel stands, suddenly, and turns around, facing a wall.

His voice is soft and flat, barely audible in the room.

"You and my mom," he says. "And Mom's not going to be around anytime soon." His voice is rough with disuse. "You make me feel safe."

Castiel turns around. Dean is still sitting. He's looking down, his face is flushed. Maybe _ashamed_ is the wrong word, but it doesn't seem far off.

Dean grew _up_ with _those_ Alphas. He was expected to be one.

He's been here almost a year.

His scar is still covered, the bandage still bulky over his face.

And Castiel can't say _no_  to him. To this quiet- nearly _silent-_ kid. Green eyes and pained, uncomfortable vulnerability.

"Let me drive you back to Anna's," he says.

 

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

The drive is strange. Quiet. Dean's not sure if it's because in the dark cab of the car Castiel won't be able to read his responses or if Castiel is just desperately uncomfortable.

 It's not that he doesn't want to be put under- to be _suppressed_. It's that he doesn't want to do this alone. He remembers his last heat- he remembers how _empty_ it was. It's blurry, but the feeling is there, the memory of the feeling.

He watches Castiel's silhouette in profile. His nose. His lips. Where the moonlight spills on him, his skin is tanned and clear.

"My father had a car," Dean murmurs.

Tonight is the most he's talked in months. The words feel free, which is a strange feeling.

"He let me drive it, sometimes. '67 Impala. Black," he continues. "It was just in town or in the woods, but it made me feel...free."

Castiel doesn't say anything. As if he's leaving room for Dean to say more, if he wants to.

"You should tell Anna," he replies, finally. "I'm sure she'd be willing to teach you. She taught me."

Dean smiles a little.

"So you like cars," Castiel murmurs. He huffs a little laugh as they turn onto the small lane that turns into Main Street.

Dean nods. There's streetlights. Castiel can see.

He pulls in front of the building.

"I'll talk to Anna and Gabriel and Ellen," Castiel says. "I want- I want to help you. To be there. But it'll be...hard."

In the light, golden sodium-lamp light, Castiel's eyes just barely peek through, blue and bright.

Dean wants to kiss him.

Which is strange. And dangerous.

He wants to-

"Merry Christmas, Castiel," he whispers, and he climbs out of the car.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this one was crazy short. the next one will be longer, i promise. i just wrote this out and was enormously satisfied with it as a discrete unit of story- wish i had even put it on the last chapter. the next one will not be crazy short; will instead be many paragraphs instead of about two.


	25. Chapter 25

The drive back to the woods is long and quiet. Castiel kind of wants to turn the radio on, fill the emptiness inside of the cab, but with the silence next to him, it's almost like Dean hasn't left- like Castiel can still wait for more of his low, measured voice.

Castiel thinks about how remarkably steady his voice is, how calm it is.

Castiel thinks about how brave Dean is, how _strong_ he is.

There had been one or two people in the city, but Castiel had never thought that he would... _want_. Ever. This hard, this much, this constantly, and for so _long_.

Anna had told him that he'd been talking to Missouri, that it had been going well, but he hadn't imagined that he would _hear_ Dean. Maybe not _ever_  and certainly not tonight.

He never thought he'd want _anyone_ , much less someone like Dean.

Castiel bites his bottom lip and worries at it with his teeth.

He needs to tell Anna and Gabriel and Ellen. All three of them. And he needs to be there. But he doesn't need to be alone with him.

He shouldn't be alone with him.

When he pulls into his driveway, he looks almost reflexively at the empty passenger seat, as if he's expecting it to be filled suddenly.

He wishes his father were alive, suddenly.

* * *

Missouri Mosely lives in a little bungalow at the edge of the town square. Purple painted house with wide windows and a big tree in the front yard.

Castiel has a full pie in one hand, and he raises the other to knock on her door.

She's unusual for a few reasons- a pack outsider and no spring chicken. She retired about ten years back, working as a hospital chaplain.

Castiel's so thankful she's been here.

When she opens the door, she stands a good two feet shorter than him, and her dark eyes sweep up to his eyes.

"Alpha," she greets. "What brings you here?"

"Dean came to see me last night," he answers.

Missouri raises an eyebrow. "Come in," she says.

Her house is well kept. Aging but well kept. A heavy smell pervades the space, something beefy and rich.

"Anna told me Dean had been seeing you," he murmurs, following her into the kitchen. "And he told me that you said he needed friends. And so he came to see me."

Missouri doesn't say anything for a moment. She stirs something in a pot.

"We played Scrabble," he murmurs.

"He thinks about you a lot," she says. "Deep thinker, that boy." She turns, and looks at Castiel. Her dark eyes are and steady and firm. "I'm not going to tell you anything he's said in here. I won't break his trust like that, even for the pack alpha."

"And I wouldn't ask you to," he answers. "I wanted to tell you...he asked me to be there in his next heat." He pauses, looking for the right thing to say next. "I want to say yes. But I want to say yes for the right reasons."

And Missouri looks at him, for a long moment. "Sit," she says. "Let me get you some stew."

* * *

Dean wakes up too late to help Gabriel with the baking, so when he gets up, he showers and heads down to the kitchen.

Gabriel is elbow deep in a three egg omelet, carefully folding the eggs over the mushroom filling at the grill.

"Hey there sleeping beauty," Gabriel says by way of greeting. "Take over one the grill for me, I'll wait tables."

Dean nods, tying an apron around his middle.

"You got in late last night," Gabriel says. "Thought I should let you sleep in. How's Cassie?"

Dean shrugs. With his hands occupied, he can't communicate much beyond nodding and smiling and shrugging and shaking his head. He can sign a _little_ , but "Scrabble" isn't a word that's in his vocabulary yet.

Gabriel nods some more. "We're slammed today, so I'm glad you finally woke up," he says. "We'll catch up when Charlie comes in for evening shift, alright?"

Dean nods again.

He's got to tell Gabriel and Anna.

But for now he's got omelets to make.

 

 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with Castiel's addiction (referenced in an earlier chapter). Keep yourselves safe, friends.

Castiel wakes up at three in the afternoon to insistent knocking on his door. He sits up and looks through his bedroom doorway to the door to the cabin. It’s a steady, loud rapping. Constant.

He’d been running last night. Didn’t get in until six am, and he’d barely had the energy to tug off his clothes and shoes then. He's sore. He's exhausted. He's still cold.

He looks at the door for another minute, hoping it'll stop knocking, that whatever's going on isn't actually pressing or important.

But the knocking persists. So he stands up and wraps his robe around himself and stumbles to the door, and when he opens it, Gabriel leaps through and socks him in the jaw.

"What the fuck!" he shouts as Gabriel cries out, "Fuck you, you rat bastard!"

Gabriel's knocked him over and he's leaned over Castiel, punching him more. _Hard_ , too. Gabriel's small but Castiel knows he's been in some fights and held his own, too. Castiel remembers his brother's black eyes and bruised knuckles.

Castiel remembers his _own_ , too.

He grabs his brother's wrist at the next throw, and he twists his arm, rolling his body towards the floor.

"What the fuck!" He cries out again.

"What are you gonna do?" Gabriel shouts. "What are you gonna do to the kid, Cas? What's your plan? What did you tell him? What did you _do_?"

  
_Shit_ , Castiel think, and he pulls himself up from the floor. "Gabriel-"

" _He trusts you_ ," Gabriel shouts. "Why the _fuck_ \- what did you _do_   to him? What are you _going_ to-"

"He approached me, Gabriel!" Castiel shouts. "He came over and we played Scrabble and he _asked_ me, okay! That was _it_. And I- I've been talking to Missouri about it- Gabriel, stop fucking _hitting_ me and let me _explain_ what the _fuck's_ been happening, _Christ_!"

"What did you do?" Gabriel demands, his body still but coiled. Tensed. Like a tiger, waiting to leap out and attack.

"He told me he wanted me there for his next heat," Castiel answers. "He _told_ me, Gabriel. He was- he told me it _hurt_ , Gabriel."

He sits crosslegged on the floor and leans forward, running his fingers through his hair. "He wants me there, Gabriel, and I want to be there- _fuck_ , I want to be there, _okay_? Dean...he...fuck, Gabriel, okay- I don't want to hurt him. I don't.  You cannot fucking _fathom_ how much I don't want to hurt this kid."

He stops, unable to say more, to finish the thought.

Because he knows Gabriel can hear it, unarticulated but present.

"I-I can't figure out if I'll hurt him _more_ being there then I will _not_ being there, okay?" He says. "And that's why I don't want to do it alone, and why I'm not sure I _can_ do it. But it wasn't my idea, Gabriel. I would only do this if he asked- I _can_ only do this if he asks."

And then it's more silence.

"Is that why you don't come into town?" Gabriel says.

Castiel shrugs. Nods. Sighs.

"They know you're avoiding him," Gabriel says. "The people in town. They avoid him, too."

Castiel feels his jaw clench.

"The point," Gabriel says, his breath heavy, his tone low and hard, "is that he'll turn eighteen and have his own life. Not stay here and pump out _babies_ for you-"

" _Fuck you!"_ Castiel shouts, leaping to his feet, and Gabriel moves forward, another punch raring to go.

"Fuck you, Gabriel! _Fuck_ you, you know- you fucking _know_ \- do you know how _hard_ it is?" He grabs his brother's shoulders and looks him into his brown, whiskey-gold eyes. "God, I want him, Gabriel, okay? Is that what you want from me? Is that what you want me to _admit_? I met him and I _wanted_ him, because when I'm near him it feels like _enough_ , okay? I have _tried_. I have tried, every day since it happened and I still _want_ it, I want to drive out into that city and I want to fix. But when I'm near him, god, Gabriel, _it is enough_." He stops and he lets go of his brother and he looks out of the window, to the woods that surround the cabin.

"I will go into that city and I will kill myself like that before I hurt him, Gabriel," he murmurs. "Is that what you want from me?"

He looks back at him, and Gabriel looks so tall. So powerful. So _hard_.

"Do not fucking talk to me about what I _want_ , Gabriel," he says, and his voice is nearly a whisper at this point. It rasps lowly in the room, interrupted by the sound of the wind still scraping dead leaves from the trees outside to tangle them into the pine needles.

With the words on the air, Castiel knows that he has been honest. Maybe he wouldn't have been so honest if he hadn't been so tired or if he hadn't been punched. But he's been honest, and that's all that he can give Gabriel right now.

"Do not talk to me about what I want," he says. "And get out of my house."


	27. Chapter 27

Gabriel doesn't look at him, doesn't talk to him. Dean just goes down and works in the diner. He mops up, he works at the grill, he cleans up at the end of the day, and when he's done, he goes upstairs and sits quietly in his room. Doesn't listen to records or anything, just...sits there.

Missouri knows- she even understands. And he hasn't told Anna.

But Gabriel doesn't even look at him, and it's making Dean want to crawl out of his skin.

Gabriel cooks and cooks and cooks and cooks. And in this time of year, there have been so many people slipping on ice and coming down with the flu that Anna's been so busy at the clinic. She's one of three nurses for the pack, working for the only doctor, and it means she's working nearly seven days a week.

Dean won't put this on her while she's working, especially if it's already upset Gabriel so badly.

"The home is the Alpha's sanctuary," his mother had told him. "We do not bring our pain or our strife into the Alpha's sanctuary."

Dean remembers his mother's bruises.

He knows Anna wouldn't. He knows Gabriel wouldn't

It's hard to know, though, and it's better to be safe then sorry.

Dean sits in his room and he looks at the record player and the box of records. He flips through them and pulls one out, at random. At random is best- Gabriel doesn't tend to have records of songs that they sang at church every week, and he doesn't know any of the other music on there.

He spins it in his fingers a moment and then puts it on.

And he closes his eyes and he tries to remember his brother's face, his mother's face.

Sam will be twelve now.

Dean wants to go home.

The song picks up, in earnest now.

Dean opens the closet door and sits in front of it, in front of the mirror hanging on the inside.

  
_Sunday Morning, praise the dawning_.

He looks at his face. He turns to the side. His cheek is smooth. His nose is unbroken, his slips are full. He looks so _normal_. So... _regular_.

He turns, to see his face front-on.

The bandage is so big. He doesn't...he doesn't look at himself without it. He puts it on as soon as he gets out of the shower, when he wakes up in the morning.

He traces his fingers over the bandage slowly.

The adhesive pulls when he rips it off, and it leaves a large square around the mark.

And the mark-

Dean's breathing too fast, suddenly, so fast that it's making his eyes hurt, his blood too fast, his hands shake.

He's not hearing the music, he's not really thinking or really _feeling_ anything- it feels like he's being surrounded by radio static, but then there's a bright spark of something, and his hand is red and the mirror is cracked and it's all tilting, slowly.

* * *

When Dean wakes up, he's in a bed that smells like Ellen's clinic with an IV line in his arm. The lights are low and warm and the room is empty- there's a memory Dean can dig up of being in here after his heat. But he hasn't been through that yet, he doesn't have the weird muscle ache from recovering from the fever or the uncomfortable-

The door opens, and Anna steps inside.

She looks at him, surprised.

"You're awake," she says. Her eyes flick down to his hand. "Gabriel found you, in your room and he called me because he was scared you had tried to-" She pauses a moment, and her eyes flood, her voice cracks. "He thought you had tried to-"

Dean shakes his head and he stands up and comes forward the few steps and hugs her- he holds her.

"Dean, what happened?" she murmurs. "I believe you, but what happened?"

He pulls away from her and pulls his notebook from his pocket.

  
_I'm sorry,_ he writes _. I didn't mean to make you worried. I was looking at the mark and then something happened and I woke up here._  


Anna looks at him, her eyes soft and clear.

"Is that all?" She asks.

 


	28. Chapter 28

Castiel _speeds_ into town when he gets the message from Anna. He'd been chopping wood and had lumbered back to the cabin after a few hours of it.

  
_Castiel_ , she'd said _, Dean's at the clinic. You might want to come_.

And he'd thrown his coat back on and he'd rushed to his truck and now he's driving, as fast as he can, into town.

It's been a couple of weeks since he saw Gabriel, which means there's a very real possibility that it's _happening_ and Castiel isn't there _again_.

He climbs out of the truck and runs into the clinic, barely staying upright on the ice.

Gabriel's there, sitting in one of the small chairs.

He looks at him, and his eyes and bright and venomous.

Nothing said, but plenty communicated.

Castiel resists the low growl trying to climb out of his belly and into his throat.

Ellen darts out of a door and says, "Anna call you?"

Castiel nods.

She nods, too. "It's not his heat," she continues. "It looks like he had an...episode. He asked to see you."  
Castiel nods again, grimly. He follows her, through the door and down a winding hallway to the room in the back, with a cot.

Dean is sitting up. He looks pale- thin. Castiel feels his heart speed up suddenly at the sight of him. "How you feeling?" He asks.

Dean shrugs. His right hand is bandaged and an IV line is stuck into the opposite arm. He rubs at his eyes with his hands. _Exhausted_ , Castiel reads in him.

"Anna called me," he says. "I thought your- I would have come even if I knew it wasn't but I was scared you were hurting- I mean, I guess you're hurting now, anyway." He pauses. "I suppose I'm babbling, I apologize."

Dean smiles, weakly, at him.

Anna comes into the room, her eyes from weeping, her hair a wreck.

"Anna," Castiel breathes. "Anna, what's wrong?"

She exhales a long breath, shuddering. "Just a long day," she murmurs. "I thought-" Her voice cracks and she shakes her head.

Castiel gives her a moment to gather her composure.

Dean looks downward, his shoulders slumping down.

"We need to talk," she finishes. "All four of us."

* * *

When Gabriel comes into the room, he looks so angry. And fuck, that hurts. Dean resists a flinch, and it's hard.

Anna looks at all three of them, her face flushed and tear-streaked.

She says calmly, "What has been happening?"

None of them say anything. There's a pad of paper in front of Dean and a pen, too, but this isn't- he's not supposed to do this. He's not supposed to make things difficult or hard to do. _Serenity_ , in the Alpha's home. Serenity.

Anna closes her eyes slowly, and then opens them again.

"Dean asked Castiel to be there for his next heat," Gabriel spits. "Castiel said _yes_."

"I told him I wanted to be there but that we needed to talk to _both_ of you first," Castiel responds, sharply. "Gabriel came to see me and made it very clear how he felt. I had assumed he spoke for the both of you."

Dean can't look at any of them.

"Dean," Anna says. "Do you want Castiel here when  you next have your heat?"

Dean grits his teeth.

A hand moves forward and takes his.

Anna's.

Her eyes are soft. Honest.

Dean nods.

Anna nods.

"Okay," she says. "Well, I think Dean's opinion is the only one that matters, in this instance."

"Anna you can't-" Gabriel says, and Anna turns to him, looks at him sharply.

Gabriel stops.

"Castiel, please stay in town," she says softly. "There are understandably some conditions we must ask you to accept." She turns to Dean. "When your IV is out, we'll go home, okay Dean?"

Dean nods again. He lays back down on the cot, and the other three stand and leave the room. 

 

 

 

 


	29. Chapter 29

Anna looks like a thunderstorm in the hallway, and before her, Castiel feels every inch the younger brother in front of her, her eyes steady and sharp and accusatory.

"I don't know," she starts, "what the _fuck_ is the problem between the two of you, but you will _stop_." Her voice is steady and calm and _furious_.

Gabriel doesn't say anything, and neither does Castiel.

"Gabriel found Dean on his bedroom floor with the mirror broken and his hand bleeding. His wrist is broken and he hasn't been eating for _days_ and it wouldn't surprise me if he hadn't been sleeping either but I've been so-" Her breath seems to catch up with her for a moment and she exhales, anxiously. "You will _both_ be civil, you will both be _supportive,_ and you will _get along with each other_. I don't _care_ that one of you is alpha," she continues, looking at Castiel. "And I don't care that one of you plays dirty," she adds, looking at Gabriel. "We all care about Dean, but would appear I have been the only one acting like it."

Gabriel has the decency to look guilty at that.

"Castiel, you're coming to dinner with us tonight." she says. "And the next night and the night after. If Dean wants you to be a part of his life when he's in heat, you're going to be a part of his life when he's not."

She turns to Gabriel. "You're going to bury the hatchet. I get that you think you're being protective, but making Dean scared to talk to you is _not protecting him_ , if landing him in the _clinic_ wasn't enough of a warning sign."

"I'm sorry," Gabriel murmurs.

"It's not me you need to be apologizing to," Anna retorts.

She wipes at her eyes delicately. Tucks some of her stray hair behind her ears.

"Dean's IV should be done in the next ten minutes. Gabriel, go home and cook dinner. Castiel, go with him."

"Anna, I don't-" He begins.

Anna looks at him, tensely.

Castiel doesn't say anything more.

They drive back into town in Castiel's truck, leaving the car for Anna to use, to get Dean back home.

Gabriel and Castiel are quiet in the car, the whole drive. Tense.

And they're quiet when they file into the house. Quiet when Castiel stands awkwardly in the small living room and Quiet when Gabriel starts cooking.

Quiet, but not peaceful.

Gabriel is tossing something into the hot pan when Anna and Dean hobble into the apartment.

Dean looks tired.

"Come on, let's get you to the couch," Anna says. 

Castiel comes forward and helps her pull him into the apartment. Dean's movements seems sluggish and loose- almost drugged.  It's not surprising that they would have given him something for the pain, but it's still jarring to see him like this- unscrewed and wide-eyed.

He seems reluctant to let go of Castiel when he sits on the couch, his hand holding tight to his arm for a little longer.

Castiel stands near him, within reach, in case.

In case.

Dean scribbles something on a piece of paper, his handwriting loose and sloppy.

  
_Sorry_ , it reads.

Castiel holds it for a long moment.

"Dean you scared us," he says. "You've got nothing to be sorry for."

Dean's jaw clenches, the muscle working.

He writes again.

  
_Sanctuary and serenity,_ it reads.

Castiel tries not to think about where Dean grew up. He knows about the kinds of compounds, the cults.

Christ the Alpha...Christ the Alpha is known for early, thorough indoctrination. For rooting through entire packs, for huge families, for insularity and secrecy and _violence_. Maybe known best for a shootout in Texas about twenty years ago- CPS came for a child and the Alpha...

Castiel looks at the note for a long moment and he gets up.

He puts it on the counter, where Gabriel will see it.

"I need to step out," he says. "I'll be back in a minute."

Damn, Castiel wishes he had a smoke.

* * *

Dean sits on the couch and feels tired and twitchy and guilty, all at once.

He shouldn't have written anything. He shouldn't have brought it up or told Castiel and now he's left.

He's left and it's all Dean's fault.

No one in the house is speaking; the silence is suffocating. Painful.

Anna is in the bathroom. Gabriel is busy with something in the kitchen that's threatening to set off the smoke alarm.

So he gets up on his wobbling legs and he steps out of the apartment and sits on the stairs leading down to the diner.

And he breathes.

Sammy was willful. Sammy was smart and funny but he was _willful_.

The silence was as hard to hear as the shouting and the beating that would follow.

He takes a deep breath and then exhales, slow and low.

He's ruined it.

It was good and now it's ruined.

Their lives were good and now-

Dean rubs his hand over the mark, pressing against it. The sensation is deadened by the bandage, but there's the places without sensation where the burn was its worst. Aches in a few places, but mostly it stings.

He's ungodly. Abandoned by Alpha and pack and family.

He buries his hands in his face.

Tries not to think or breathe or feel anything.

He's out there for what feels like a long time, trying to calm down, to figure out what comes next.

"Dean?" He hears Castiel say.

 

 

 

 


	30. Chapter 30

When Dean looks up at him, his eyes are red-rimmed and anxious. His shoulders and hands are shaking- he looks undone. Nervous and guilt and worried.

"What happened?" Castiel asks. "Do you need paper?"

Dean shakes his head, pulls a pad out of his pocket and a pen.

  
_Ruined everything_ , he writes. In his off-hand, his writing is loose and wrong _. Made you go away, made Gabriel angry, made Anna cry. I shouldn't have come here_.

Castiel looks at him, standing a few steps below where he's sitting in the narrow stairwell. Outside, the January air whips around the building, and it makes the space echoey, practically howling. It makes Castiel think of the few times he _ran_ with packs, out in the city.

Castiel shakes his head.

"Dean, none of this- none of this is your fault," he says. He sits on the steps, a ways below him.

He looks, with loose eyes, at the wall of the stairwell.

He remembers with Raphael bought this building, when he rented it to whichever college students and drifters came through. He remembers the house he grew up in.

It sits boarded up on a hill, outside of town.

"Anna is crying and Gabriel is angry and I...I _leave_ for all of our own reasons. It's not on you- please, know that. This isn't about you needing to be someone other than you are because you're so...you're so smart and _bright._ You make...being here is better with you around, and we don't want to change you because we think that would make things more _serene_ or some shit." He huffs a short laugh. "Trust me, if either Anna or I were looking for serenity, we wouldn't be around here."

He licks his lips, and they sting, chapped. "Anna and Gabriel and I, we're...damaged. And we're... trying. And that's not really an excuse, but it is- I hope it can be a reason. We're trying, and we all care about you. But we're...god, I'm so sorry, Dean."

He pauses for a long moment.

"I'm sorry we're hurting you in trying to do the...the right thing by you," he continues. "And it's our fault."  
There's another close, tight silence.

"When I was small... I have this memory. I woke up early in the morning, just before dawn, and I got dressed and my mom gave me a packed lunch and I went to the lake with my father. And I stood there, in the cold water, for _hours_. I must have been...six or seven. And he taught me to catch a fish with my _bare hands_." He pauses a moment. "Of course, February lake water and temperatures- I got a _terrible_ cold that turned into pneumonia and Mother was _furious_ and I had to stay in bed for _weeks_ \- nearly had to go into the city to get an antibiotic line into my heart. But I remember thinking, even as I was so sick, that I wouldn't trade catching that fish for anything in my life. It was huge. As big as my arm and strong, too. And when I got into...into my trouble in the city...I thought about that fish, every day in rehab. That fish, that was my _reason_. I'd be clean, I'd be _right_ and there'd be the fish." He looks up at Dean, on the step. His green eyes, his scattered, starry sky of freckles over his face. Castiel bites his lip for a moment.

"I remember how proud of me my father was," he murmurs. "Father was a proud man. Stoic. But in the lake that day...I knew he loved us. All of us."

He looks at Dean again.

It has to be true, if he says it, and he knows it is.

"I'd trade that fish for you," he answers.

The silence continues between them. The wind howls outside, the walls of building groan.

"I act...foolish because of it. Please know...please know that I would give...I would do-"

The door opens, suddenly.

"There you are," Gabriel says, standing in the doorway. "Dinner is ready." He gestures inward with a quick jerk of his head.

He leaves the door open and Castiel stands.

Dean stands, too.

Castiel goes up the steps to go inside and Dean reaches out and stops him.

And he pulls him into a tight, crushing hug, so close it bruises his ribs.

Castiel realizes suddenly that Dean is _taller_ than he is.

Dean feels right in his arms.

 


	31. Chapter 31

Dean's not sure why he does it, but he's hugging Castiel and it's-

It's warm and steady and right and good and _okay_.

He inhales,  long and slow, and when he exhales he feels like he's taken off a weight, like he's removed something from himself. An infection, an agony.

And he's not sure he can go back into the apartment yet- if it will bring the infection back into him. If it will make things more difficult.

He lets go of Castiel and tucks his notebook back into his pocket.

He's still tired, though, absolutely exhausted. He wants to lay down for a long moment and fall asleep- wake up when things make more sense.

When he walks back into the apartment, Anna and Castiel are setting the table, and Gabriel is filling a serving bowl with what looks like a stew.

They all make a lot of stew- Gabriel and Castiel and Anna (the few times she's cooked) and Dean eats a lot of it. He's glad it's this actually, something about the warmth and density of it makes him feel more _real_...more human. There's even a loaf of hot bread, golden brown and nestled between warm towels. He sits down at the table, and the rest of them follow.

There's not conversation or anything more than the quiet hush of them eating- bread crackling and spoons scraping on the bottom of bowls. It's low but still tense.

As he eats, he feels more and more exhausted, his energy waning quickly.

"Dean, do you need to go to bed?" Anna asks softly, about twenty minutes in.

He nods, stifles a yawn against the back of his hand. When he goes to stand, his knees seem to loose in his legs. He wobbles and nearly collapses onto the floor, and Castiel rushes up to steady him.

Dean leans against him, for a moment, lets his blood settle out, undizzy.

Dean doesn't miss the particular way Gabriel looks at Castiel, fierce and terrible, and it makes his own blood turn dark and cold.

Castiel takes his arm slowly, and Dean leans into him and they walk, slowly, to Dean's room.

* * *

The apartment is small, that's no argument, but it's strange to Castiel how small Dean's room is. Barely wide enough for his twin bed to rest long-ways against the back wall. Barely deep enough through  for the small table and dresser against the opposite wall. It's small, barely more than a closet.

His room in the house on the hill was nearly the size of the apartment's whole living room area.

He hasn't been in that house in nearly four years. He'd venture to say it's been a little under three for Anna and Gabriel.

Maybe one day, they'll go back there. Take the dropclothes off the furniture and turn the power and water back on. But for now, the thought of it-

It stings.

Castiel turns the light on the room, and he helps Dean ease down onto his bed. He notices the busted out mirror in the small closet door, the broken glass gone- probably vacuumed up by Gabriel at some point.

Dean pulls out his pad and writes as quickly as his off-hand will allow him, _I don't want you to go._  


Castiel looks at it for a long time. He tucks it into his pocket.

He smiles weakly at Dean. Hoping he can get across that he feels the same way- that he doesn't want to go either, that he doesn't want to leave Dean here.

"I'll be at the diner, for breakfast," he says instead.

And Dean nods in an understanding kind of way. It's...tender. Soft. And it makes Castiel want to leave him even less.

He steps out of the room and softly shuts the door behind himself.

 

 

 


	32. Chapter 32

Back in the living room, Anna and Gabriel are still seated. They are not eating but they are not speaking, either. And there is nothing easy to their silence, nothing friendly or _okay_. It's the kind of world-still silence before a summer storm, before the lightning hits.

Gabriel looks at him for a long moment before he says, "You aren't allowed to hurt him more than you already have."

 "Gabriel, you're not _fixing him_ ," Castiel answers, sighing heavily.

It's quiet again for a few moments before he sighs heavily.

"I'll see you at breakfast," he says, and he grabs his keys and steps out of the house and back into the January night.

* * *

When Dean wakes up the next morning, it's _freezing_ in his bedroom. He feels that _stab_ of panic for a moment- _this is it, it's here again-_ before he realizes that this is a different kind of cold, cold because it's physically _frigid_ in this house. He sits up, still in his clothes from yesterday, and wanders over to the window.

There's a snowstorm.

He didn't see this kind of snow last year, but this is comparable to the kind of snow he got back in Montana.

He looks at it for a long time, making the light of dawn so much brighter, so much clearer.

He looks at it and he sits back down on the bed.

He looks back at his alarm clock and slams it's high trilling off.

There's a knock his door and he opens it. Gabriel stands there.

"Snow day," he says. "Diner's closed. Go back to bed."

It seems like the most Gabriel has said to him uncoerced in days.

Dean nods, but he can't help but feel this has as much to do with the snow as Castiel's promise to come to breakfast.

He wishes he could tell Gabriel how _good_ Castiel is, how he hasn't hit him or ordered him or shouted at him- Castiel has treated Dean better than Dean's own kin ever did. Took him in from the cold and fed him and now, he makes him _whole_. He can't quite fathom why Gabriel doesn't trust Castiel. His Alpha and his brother. In Montana, it would have been enough to have Gabriel beaten in the town square after Wednesday night church- to doubt his Alpha and sow discord in the home.

There are no public beatings here, though, and no Wednesday night church services, either.

Dean changes out of his clothes and climbs under the blankets. Twists the blinds all the way open and watches the snow slowly fall.

* * *

When Castiel wakes up, it's snowing. He doesn't even have to look out the window to know this- it is the sound of it falling that has woken him from his restless sleep.

And then the truck doesn't start.

So he trades out his sneakers for a pair of leather boots, and he walks into town.

It's still snowing, hard, all about his ears. But he's not scent blind, still capable of finding his well-worn path from his cabin into town.

He promised. He promised Dean breakfast, and he'll be damned if he'll let the weather stop him.

He's a little under halfway there before he realizes he wishes he had a fucking _hat_ or something, or a scarf or maybe a balaclava. His nose feels disconnected from his body, and it's driving him crazy.

He loses the scent of the path, and then he loses visibility, and then he's caught blind out there, in the snow.

 


	33. Chapter 33

Dean's hands and wrists start shaking and it won't stop. It's nearly noon and the snow hasn't let up. And Anna's called and Ellen's called and no one has _heard_ from him. No one knows where he is. No one knows.

He was supposed to be here hours ago. He was supposed to come to breakfast.

He said he'd be here.

And he's not here.

He's not here and he's not home.

Castiel is an honorable man.

A man of the-

He's the Alpha. He' s the Alpha- he's the Alpha and he's gone. What happens to the pack if he's-

What happens to _Dean_ if he's-

"Dean," Anna says softly, coming up close to him on the couch, "Dean, are you okay? Castiel- Castiel's _fine_ Dean, I'm sure he's just at the lake and he lost track of the time."  
 _He said he'd be here,_ Dean thinks.

He said he'd be here. For breakfast.

And he wouldn't do this to Dean.

Something's _wrong_ and he's the only one that cares.

He wishes he could say something, that he could speak, but that stopper, that block inside of him, is there and it's huge and it's cruel.

He wishes he could _scream_.

Instead he sits on the couch and he watches the snow through the windows and he prays.

For the first time in a year, Dean prays.

_Father our Alpha in your heavenly kingdom, watch over our Alpha, your voice on this sinful earth. Watch over the pack, your will on this sinful earth. Watch over us, your flock on this sinful earth. Amen._

Over and over again.

Over and over and over again.

Just because it's never done anything before doesn't mean it won't do anything now.

God help him, let it do something now.

* * *

Gabriel gets tired of waiting for something to happen at ten, and he pulls on his coat and scarf and hat and gloves and he climbs into the car- snow chains secured on after a maddening ten minutes of fiddling and dragging.

And he drives, from the apartment to the cabin, in the blinding, thick snow.

The roads are empty, because the only dumbass that would be out in this is _him_ and maybe his _goddamn_ brother but he doubts that.

Chances are his phone line has gone out and he's staying at home, kicking himself for not being able to reach them.

Reach _Dean_ more like it.

Gabriel sighs heavily. Turns on the radio.

TLC starts playing.

He turns off the radio.

Feels wrong.

Because everything is going to be _fine_ once he gets to Castiel, it's going to be _just_  fine and everyone's going to feel real _dumb_ and Gabriel's going to be allowed to get back to hating his brother's guts, because his brother is an _idiot_ who should have seen this coming, who should have realized that there was only so much he could do to-

Fuck Castiel, okay. Just fuck him.

Maybe if he'd kept distance from the very _start_ it wouldn't have happened. But he should have known that there was no way to do this without fucking up the kid.

When Gabriel gets to the Cabin, the lights are off and there's no smoke coming from the chimney, which is a bad sign. A real bad sign.

There are no footprints, which means that when he _walked_ out, it was a while ago. Maybe _hours_ ago.

Which means he's _lost_.

"God- _fucking_ \- damnit, Cassie," Gabriel shouts, slamming the car door and stomping inside the cabin. The stove is cold, long cold. He grits his teeth.

He dials the apartment.

"Anna," he breathes. "He's not in the cabin and the truck is here. No footprints. Call Benny- it's a manhunt."

"What?" Anna cries out on the other end of the line.

"Hey, Anna, please," he says. "Anna, stay calm, okay? Please. Chances are he didn't realize how thick it would get- Cassie's smart but sometimes- it's gonna be okay, alright? He probably just thought he was Superman- call Benny, alright? I'm gonna get the stove going and wait until Benny and some of the boys from the department show up here, okay? We need to stay calm, okay? Just- please, Anna. Just call Benny."

"Okay," she says.

She sounds like she did the night Dad died, coming into the hospital with her eyes red and her hair messed up.

If Castiel's _dead_ out there, Gabriel's never going to speak to him again.

And if he's _alive_ , Gabriel's going to fucking _kill him_.


	34. Chapter 34

Anna answers the phone, and she goes _quiet_.

Dean knows what that kind of quiet means. There's a silence when someone gets bad news, a silence when something is wrong. And this is what's happening. Dean can hear it, the texture and shape of that silence.

"Okay," she says. "Okay. Let me call them. Okay. Keep in touch." She pauses again. "Gabriel...be safe," she ends.

Dean sits on the couch and he looks at her for a long time.

And Anna looks at him and she says, "He wasn't in the cabin. I'm gonna call up Benny- he runs the hunting lodge and he knows the woods. And I'll call Bobby with the sherrif's department." She takes a deep, deep breath. "He's Alpha," she says. "They'll find him."

Dean takes a deep breath, long and even and smooth. And he remembers the shape of Castiel's smell in his mind.

Lakewater and earth and evergreens. Blood and lanolin and rain. Oranges and old leather and that dark, sweet scent, almost sticky way down deep under it all.

That smell.

He pulls out his pad and writes, _I can find him_.

Anna looks at it for a long time.

"Dean," she says, softly. "Dean, you can't make those jokes."

  
_I CAN FIND HIM_ , he writes again. He stands, he holds it before her eyes.

He's a little taller than her.

He gestures, around the air, to his nose.

He points at the pad, emphatically.

Anna's eyes are red-rimmed from crying.

  
_I CAN FIND HIM_.

"Put on your coat," she whispers.

* * *

_  
_   


Dean is heavy.

This is not a physical characteristic of him; it is a characteristic of his soul. The way his brow furrows and the way his eyes search, the way his jaw sets.

Dean sets out walking from the apartment, Anna following. He moves quickly. Steadily. And his eyes search, flitting from the trees to the snow, to the drifts.

And Anna follows him. Benny and the hunting lodge and Bobby and the boys with the sherrif's department are scouting out the woods. And Anna believes in them. She's got faith in them plenty.

But watching Dean move so surely, so seriously, she knows a few things completely, and one of them is that Dean will find Castiel. If they're out here all day and night, if Castiel is alive or-

They're going to find him.

  
_Dean's_ going to find him.

And that means some things are going to have to change in the pack.

 

 


	35. Chapter 35

Gabriel holds the fort in the cabin and he waits. He stokes the fire and he airs Castiel's blankets and sheets and he pokes around in Castiel's fridge. And he waits. He paces.

Gabriel hates waiting. He doesn't do it well, he doesn't do active stillness well- it's the goddamn reason he sleeps less that twenty feet from the business he owns. Gabriel's not a thinker, and he's not one to wait around. He takes initiative.

Not a lot of iniative you _can_ take if you're waiting to find out whether or not your brother is fucking dead in the goddamn _snow_.

Benny and Bobby and the lodge and the sheriff's office all showed up about two hours ago and now he's just waiting.

He hears voices outside and he gets up from the couch and its-

It's Anna and Dean and _Castiel_.

They're limping up onto the porch, all three of them, Castiel draped over Anna and Dean. Bobby and Benny nowhere in sight.

"About two miles out," Anna says as Gabriel dashes forward, "in a snowdrift. No coat, just sandals."

The wind screams around them and Gabriel takes his legs and the three of them cart him into the cabin.

"And with the weather," Anna says, "we can't get him to the clinic or to a hospital. Get me a bowl full of warm water and some towels."

And suddenly there's no waiting, there's no pacing. There's Castiel, shivering and blue lipped on his own couch.

And Dean, his mouth pursed and his eyes sharp and his movements purposeful and steady.

* * *

Dean knows Castiel's heart, right where it is and right how it beats. He knows it as well as his own heart. He rests his hands over his cold chest, over where that heart beats and he feels it and he wills it to steady and speed and to bring him back into the world. To bring him back to _him_.

Because Castiel isn't allowed to die. He's not. He's not allowed to _leave_ Dean, to just leave him here.

They've got his clothes off and him wrapped up in blankets, a heating pad tucked up against his chest, the fire roaring. There's an IV in him, but his eyes still haven't opened and he still hasn't said anything, just brief  whimpers and moans.

And Dean keeps count of his heartbeat.

They're there for about forty five minutes when Anna says, "He's still not warm enough."

He looks up at her. He's not writing, but he's still not speaking. She can read him though.

"You're so close," she begins. "It might make it start, and you don't have a suppressant and we can't get to the clinic or to Ellen-"  
Dean shakes his head.

Anna's eyes go wide.

He gestures to the bedroom, to Castiel's bed. There's not room for both of them on the couch.

She clamps the IV and pulls out the butterfly needle.

Anna takes the knees. Dean takes the shoulders. They move him quickly to the bedroom and reposition the blankets back over him.

Dean pulls off his shirt and pants, leaving his underwear decidedly _on_ and climbs into the bed with Castiel.

And he curls up close to him to his cold, shivering skin and he lays his hand back over his heart and he feels the beat and he takes in the smell of him, the safety of him.

He nestles his nose into the crook of his neck and he feels him and wills him back to warmth and life.

* * *

The thought throbs through him.

_Pack, pack, pack, pack, pack, pack, pack-_

Runs circuit through him like his blood. Steady and consant.

_Omega. Mate._

The thought traipses through him and it's the rightest, realest thing Castiel has ever thought.

His arms wrap around a body, tight and close and hot. So hot and so nice.

"Mate," he rumbles.

He slips back asleep.

 


	36. Chapter 36

His face is relaxed, slack and easy. Lips slightly party, eyes closed. His skin is freckled and mostly clear, a spot here or there. His hair is mussed, his eyes are closed, fringed with brown/blonde lashes. He looks so relaxed, so vulnerable. His body heat is warm beside him, radiating off of the sheets, sinking deep into the mattress.

Castiel lays beside Dean and watches him sleep, feels something calm inside of himself.

His scent is soft and grassy, bringing to mind the texture of turned soil and dead leaves; there's something like scorched sugar underneath it. A bare hint of blood or plasma. It makes Castiel remember the brand under the bandage- it's probably healed by now but he doesn't look at it. Dean doesn't show him and it's not his place to ask or demand.

Castiel will never demand anything of Dean, and he will only ask him to be near. To be close.

He watches him and he slips back under, into the calm sleep of pack and mate.

* * *

The two of them sleep.

Anna's not sure when Dean slips under, but he and Castiel sleep and sleep and sleep. She keeps an IV line going through Castiel, and his heartbeat and body temperature level off into normal fairly soon.

And so she comes in every hour or so and checks on them- casts an eye over them and checks their vitals. Both of them.

The wind howls outside. Bobby and Benny sent their boys home and now they're hanging out in the living room with her and Gabriel, helping him keep the fire going and get a meal together. They'll both need to eat when they wake up. Dean walked eight, ten miles out here and Castiel's probably shivered off whatever goddamn body fat was left on him.

The sun set a while ago and the hours grow later and later and later and the snow falls thicker and thicker.

It's about ten at night when Castiel wakes up, stumbling out of the bedroom with the needle pulled out of his arm, bleeding.

"I have to pee," he says, groggily.

"Whoah, there, speedy," she says. "Come on, let's get that arm wrapped and you to the bathroom, okay, Cas?"

He nods, his eyes unfocused and distant.

"Anna," Gabriel says, "what was in that IV?"  
"Saline," she says. "Just saline, nothing else, okay?" She supports their brother and helps him over to the bathroom. "He keeps specific stuff here, Gabriel, nothing that could-"  
"Okay," he interrupts. "Okay." he goes back to clanging around in the kitchen.

Gabriel saw Castiel when he was fucked up- real fucked up. But he's not fucked up. He's just loopy.

Anna's not stupid, and she's not nearly as naïve as her brother thinks she is.

She wraps his arm quickly, and he waves her away so he can pee.

He emerges out of the bathroom after about  five minutes, blanket still wrapped over his shoulders.

And Gabriel stands there and stares at him, like he didn't expect to see him again, much less standing.

"You asshole," he says.

Castiel doesn't say anything.

Gabriel takes a deep breath.

Castiel wasn't really lucid to remember the funerals, but Anna remembers her brother.

She remembers the way Gabriel was cold with sadness, with anger, with fear.

And he's so cold right now, it's making her teeth hurt.

"What were you _thinking_?" he says.

Castiel doesn't say anything for a moment more.

Gabriel throws a spoon in the sink. The noise is huge.

"I promised," he says.

"Then you fucking _call_ ," Gabriel shouts. Gabriel _roars_. "You fucking _call_ and you make plans for another day but you don't walk out, practically fucking _barefoot_ in a _goddamn snowstorm and make all of us fucking think you're going to fucking die out there!"_  


Castiel looks down at his feet, like he's noticing the blisters and bruises and frostbite there for the first time.

He nods.

Gabriel points to the bedroom. "You almost fucking _killed_ that boy," he hisses.

"Thought you didn't want him near me," he murmurs.

Gabriel exhales sharply. "You selfish son of a bitch," he bites.

"I think maybe this is a better discussion for another time," Benny says. "I'm as big a fan of the family drama as the next guy, but maybe when half of the argument is frost-addled isnt' the time to uh...dramatize."

"Come on, Castiel," Anna says. "Let's get you back to bed."

"I'm sorry," he says weakly.

"I know," she answers.


	37. Chapter 37

The bed is empty, and then it's full again.

Dean curls around Castiel's body, warm and safe. His muscles are loose and lax, his body is warm. He fits in close to Dean, tight and soft.

It's the sleepy, safe space between waking and being fully, totally asleep. It's dizzy and soft. It feels safe. Feels like home.

He slips back under, into sleep.

* * *

When Castiel wakes up, his eyes are so blue and bright and sharp.

Dean's watched him for a long time now. His hair is dark and soft, mussed. His lips are full and soft.

He doesn't look like an Alpha, in Dean's arms. He looks like a child- he looks soft and innocent and dear.

A song among Gabriel's records-

  
_But you're innocent when you dream_.

"Hello," Castiel murmurs beside him.

Dean looks at him, voice still broken in his throat.

"I promised," he says.

Dean reaches, barely forward, and he covers his mouth with his single finger. Quieting.

Castiel shakes his head, slowly.

"I promised," he repeats. "And I wasn't thinking. I thought- I thought I could make it out to you, no problem."

He pauses for a long moment.

"I wasn't acting...responsibly," he says.

Dean looks at him, at the way he stares away from Dean's eyes, not quite at the distance, not quite at his chest.

"I owe you more," Castiel says.

There's no paper, and there's nothing in Dean's throat to make the words back.

He takes his finger and writes across Castiel's skin, _Please_.

Castiel doesn't say anything more.

And they don't untangle from each other, and they don't need to look away from each other.

"Do you know how long I was out there?" he asks.

Dean shakes his head.

"Do you know how long I've been _here_?" He asks.

Dean shakes his head.

Castiel's arm wraps over his hips, pulling him close and near.

* * *

It's still snowing when Dean sits up in the bed, the early morning light filtering into the room through the thin curtains around the window. The bed is empty and the door is open, leading into the golden light of the living room.

Dean pulls a blanket around his shoulders and walks into the living room, where Anna and Gabriel and two men he doesn't know are sitting.

He looks at the four of them, and they all look absolutely exhausted.

"Hello, Dean," Anna greets. "How you feeling?"

He knows what she's asking- asking him if he's in heat.

He nods.

No heat right now. Maybe in a few days, but not today. There's not the uneasy fever, the shaky feeling, the jittering strangeness inside of him. He feels real.

"Weather's gonna keep up for a few hours more," a man on the couch says. He's older, wearing a khaki uniform and a baseball hat. "Should ease up and by tomorrow morning, all of us can clear out of Castiel's cabin here."

Gabriel is fretting with a mug in his hand. He looks equally guilty and furious, and Dean feels his own guilt, seeing him.

Something here is his fault, and he can't put a finger on _what_. Something here, he broke.

Castiel steps out of the bathroom and he sees him and he sees everyone else in the room and he says, "It's time we had a talk about what the _hell_ has been going on."


	38. Chapter 38

Castiel says it, and the room stays quiet. Neither Benny nor Bobby move, and although they are not part of the drama, directly, it's important that they be here as part of the community- the Hunting Lodge and Sherriff's Office are both pillars.

And Anna and Gabriel don't move either. And Dean just stands there, face concerned and open. Eyes wide and green and soft and sad.

"Everyone in this room knows," Castiel begins, and the words bite like acid all the way through his voice, "that I have made Big Decisions."

This is the euphemism he uses for what happened. Because they were...they were Big Decisions, and they were the decisions he made. Not good decisions, not safe decisions. But they were the ones he made, and they were important.

Important things aren't always good.

"And those Decisions, they impact the way you think of me. And that's fair. Because what happened in the city, it was ugly and it was scary and it was _foolish._ But it was three years ago, and I'm...I won't lie to you and say that I'm a different man or something, but I am a man who has changed. So if you could all just...put aside the fact that when I became...pack Alpha I was barely out of rehab, that would be _helpful_."  
He pauses a moment. Lets it hang there.

"I will never...I will never act with the intention of hurting Dean," he says. "I will never touch him or... _force_ him. I will not." He watches Gabriel's face darken, and he cannot look at Dean beside him. "I will not ask to be involved in Dean's life or choice beyond what Dean asks me to be involved in. I am not here to ask that I be involved in Dean's...Dean's heat or Dean's work or Dean's life or whether or not he becomes a part of the pack here. These are Dean's decisions."

"He's _seventeen,_ " Gabriel says.

"He is," Castiel says.

Gabriel's face grows dark and infuriated.

"Castiel, Jesus Christ, you can't just-"

"Gabriel, I think Dean has lived quite enough of his life with people trying to make his decisions for him _,"_ Anna murmurs.

"I'm not ready to be part of a pack," Dean says.

His voice is quiet, like most of the times Castiel has heard his voice. It's rough and it cracks, pitching up and down with disuse.

"Maybe I'm ready to start getting to know people," he continues. "But I'm still figuring out what," he coughs a few times, "what _pack_ means here. 'M not ready for it."

He pauses again.

God, he looks tired. Castiel wants to tuck him into bed, bring him something to eat. Sleep at his foot like a watchdog.

"I'm not ready to live on my own, either," he says. "I'm still broken. Bad. But I'm- I'm-I'm-I'm-" His voice breaks off. His hand drifts to his bandage.

It's quiet in the room for a long time. Still.

"Okay," Gabriel says, finally.

"Okay."

And Dean's eyes flit over to him, looking at him for a long moment.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Gabriel says. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry my damage made me treat you like an ass."  
And Dean nods.

"Dean," Anna says, "This is Bobby and Benny. They were pretty impressed by your tracking."  
It's a distraction, but it's welcome. It's kind.

Anna is nothing of not kind.

"Skills like that, be good use in the Hunting Lodge," Benny says. "You're probably not looking for a job, but I'm sure Bobby would like your help establishing the deer trails through the area to help Cas here keep an eye out for pochers and such."

And Dean's face shifts into a crooked smile.

Voice still missing, he reaches for the pad of paper on the table.

 

 


	39. Chapter 39

Benny’s got a piece of rope and he’s demonstrating knots to Dean. He ties and unties it a few times, and then hands the rope to Dean, who repeats the actions carefully. They've been doing this for nearly two hours, more or less wordless, as the storm whips around the cabin and the sun continues its track across the sky.

Castiel watches them from a distance, peeling apples at the kitchen table. Gabriel's working on a pie crust- the thing is chilling just outside on the doorstep.

Benny did the same thing with him shortly after he got out of rehab. Taught him all the knots and then taught him knitting and then taught him cabling and then taught him weaving. The puzzles needed to get more and more complex, more moving parts and variables. Hell, he's still got about a year's worth of incomplete textile work in a storage unit in town. He'll finish it one day- got a basket of knitting in a closet here at the cabin.

In the early recovery, having something to do with his hand helped. Made him focus, made him sharp again. Benny's good for that. 

Missouri will make you focus on your problem, but Benny'll make you  _function_ again.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel murmurs, elbow deep in soapy water.

Castiel stays quiet.

"I saw you at the funeral," Gabriel says. "For...dad and Raph. And that's hard to forget."

Castiel gets his meaning quickly.

"Gabriel, please," he murmurs.

His brother goes still, behind him at the sink. They are back to back now, facing away from each other. Quiet.

"It's hard to remember you as an...an alpha. And not just as my brother who fucked up," he says.

The faucet runs for a moment and then there's a sound of the plug being drawn. Castiel moves to a new apple, peeling in one long, curly strip.

"We can't hurt Dean," Gabriel says. "And I'm scared that when...whatever happens here, because there's something happening here, that whatever happens...it's gonna hurt him. And Castiel...you can't...I won't let you be responsible for hurting him."

"I meant it," Castiel says. "What I told you, when you punched me? I meant it."  
"I know," Gabriel says.

Another long pauses, heavy with the noise of the knife along the apple's flesh.

"I know, but I'm not sure I believe you," Gabriel says.

-

Benny hands him the rope again, and the knot this time is complicated, folds and twists going back and forth over themselves.

Benny seems okay. Friendly. Strong but nice, like a bear. He's got an accent for a place Dean can't get a handle on, that he doesn't quite know. But he knows lot of knots and he moves slowly and he helps Dean when he forgets steps.

"So what do you think a pack does?" Benny asks him.

"The lord's work," Dean answers, pulling one end of the rope past a loop, into a new fold. "Man was not meant to live alone; the sin of Eve would have been prevented by the watchful eye of a righteous Alpha, an obedient pack."

"You gotta go under the third- yeah, you got it," Benny says, and Dean turns the knot around in his hands.

"What do you think you do in a pack?" Benny asks.

"An omega is servant to the will of the pack," he says. "And when the omega's duty is done, the omega is sent out into the valley. The omega's duty is the rearing and carrying of pups."  
"Alright, now you want to turn it ninety degrees and- yep, if you just square tie the ends together," Benny says, "you got yourself a monkey's fist."

He drapes it around Dean's neck, where it rests against his chest, right between his pecs. It's hard and tight and heavy right there.

"Old sailor's talisman," Benny says. "My girl taught me how to make them, and Andrea, she learned from her old pa. Mean's you're not alone out there. It's a lifeline." Benny smiles slightly. "Mighty thing, to tie your own monkey's fist."

Dean holds it in his hand, feels the rough texture of the hemp rope. It scratches against his thumb. It will grow softer as he wears it.

"Smugglers used to fill them with jewels, too, cause they're a real bitch and a half to undo," Benny digresses. "At any rate, might wanna see what Gabriel's up to in the kitchen. He's got a look on his face like he's itchin' to make a caramel and between me and you, I'm not positive Castiel's got the fire extinguisher on hand to handle that inevitable disaster."

Dean grins at him. He nods, and wanders toward the small kitchen. He sits next to Castiel, who is peeling a whole pile of apples.

Gabriel hands him a cutting board and a knife. "Thin slices, alright? We're going for a gallette."

"Nice knot," Castiel mentions after a few minutes.

Dean smiles.

 

 


	40. Chapter 40

Dean works in the diner, he reads at the library, he makes miles and miles and miles of monkey’s fists. He starts with chunky rope, makes fists as big around as his head around spheres of styrofoam and wood. They fill his room, the space under his bed, his closet. Gabriel hangs them from the windows, and some of them disappear- Dean’s told to boats to use as fishing floats. He makes more necklace length ones, in hemp and leather cord. And he makes tiny, tiny, tiny ones out of silk cord, double ended to use as cufflinks or boutonnieres.

Benny doesn’t hand him a gun, on the hunting trips, and Dean doesn’t ask for one. He’s not interested in shooting, just in walking through the woods and seeing the deer trails and the bear tracks. He likes them, he likes their world. He understands the hunting, though. Benny and the people in the lodge, they feed people- their own families and some of the widows who can’t make ends meet. It’s good of them, and Dean understands thinning the herd. Good for the forest, good for the deer. And he’s apparently good at it, but he’s more interested in in the way Benny is quiet company and the way the forest feels around him. It’s a few months to season, anyway- only thing that’s open right now is coyote and they don’t see many of them around here to begin with. So they’re less hunting trips and more long, early morning hikes, out in the cold. Early March air close and moist around them. The winter cold hangs on with a loosening grip, a little further away every day.

Dean’s nearly two months overdue on his heat at this point. Literally any day, any minute, any time. There’s an IV kit at the house, bag full of saline next to the bottle full of suppressant. Ellen says there’s plenty of reasons why he’s overdue- his body is still figuring it out, settling into a cycle, and the stress of the past few months is making that more difficult.

Benny hands him a hammer and a nail, and Dean carefully nails a fist made in neon-yellow nylon cord to the tree. There’s a whole series of them leading through the forest, informal trail markers.

Basically, Dean keeps making knots, and people keep finding uses for them.

“Alright, brother, let’s head back into town. Gabriel’s place is gonna be opening pretty soon and he’ll want you around,” Benny says. Dean nods, slipping the hammer into the loop on his jeans. They’re maybe a mile or two out from town- won’t be too long to get back to the diner.

The last of the February snow crunches under their feet. The leaves have long rotted into the soil, meaning that many of the footprints squish, too. Neither of them move too quietly on the way back, but they don’t talk much. Dean’s left the notebook at home- he doesn’t have much to say out here, and what he does want to say, he can say. Benny makes his voice feel easy, free. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions, doesn’t start conversation, and when Dean does talk, he listens.

It’s easy as breathing.

They get into town, to the diner, at about eight and Benny heads back over to his truck and drives to his job at the station. Dean unlocks the front door, and Gabriel stands behind the counter, counting out the register.

“Hey, kiddo,” he greets. “Good walk? Get rid of some of those damn knots of yours?”  
Dean nods. Picks up the hammer and waves it. Ta dah!

Gabriel smiles. “Missouri’s talking to a friend in the city with a boutique. People want to buy the itty bitty ones, pay you good money for it.”

Dean shrugs. He doesn’t make the knots for other people, he makes them because he hates knitting and he likes to have something to do with his hands and the knives for whittling make him twitchy. He grabs a washrag and wipes the tables down as he sets chairs. There’ll be people in not too long from now. Sunday morning, the people not going to church or the people who have decided to be late. Not a bad crowd. Dean either goes upstairs or in the kitchen at eleven, when the church crowd gets out.

Dean’s not into the church crowd, and he’s not into the church and he’s not into the idea of going to services or being baptized or any of it.

“Castiel dropped off some sort of waxed thread for you, by the way,” he says. “He was wondering if you could do some complex braids for him, something about bundles for something? Or maybe laundry? I dunno. Castiel dropped off some waxed thread for you.”

Dean smirks again.

Castiel’s pulled less of a disappearing act than he did last year, after the first heat, but he’s still not around as often as Dean would like. Sometimes he’s around on hikes with Benny and sometimes he comes for breakfast or dinner. He sees him maybe two or three times a week.

Dean wishes he could play more scrabble with him.

Anna comes into the diner, in her scrubs and her hair piled up in a huge bun. She grabs a danish from the pastry stand on the counter, and looks at Dean with an inquisitive look. A question asked without voicing.

Dean shakes his head and she nods. She’s got a pager and they’ve got the number, just in case. Ellen knows what’s going on, gets that she’s on-call.

He’s still not got the feeling, the sensation that it’s coming, that it’s near.

God, he’s worried about it.

Dean wipes tables.

 

 


	41. Chapter 41

Castiel is out in the woods- he’s counting nests, making sure the eagles are in the right places- and he can’t stop seeing Dean’s knots. They use different colors for different things- he’s not sure what they indicate, but sometimes he’s walking along the pink trail and sometimes it’s the orange. He and Benny nail them up, and sometimes a couple of days later, gravel paves the path laid out by the knots. Sometimes they disappear, taken up into the nests or by raccoons. The big ones- the huge ones- dot the sea, marking crab traps and other fishing exploits. They’re everywhere, and he’s even told that small ones are getting sold up in the city.

According to Anna, Dean hated knitting, but he doesn’t mind the multi-stranded braids Castiel asks him to make. He doesn’t really need them for any reason, in particular. He’s sure Anna knows that he doesn’t need them for any reason, that they’re actually just going in a box in his drawer when Dean's scent wears off.

Castiel can't sleep without it now.

Dean and Benny and Bobby and Gabriel and Anna were in his cabin for nearly four days, with Dean sleeping in his bed and Castiel holing up in the bathtub with some old quilts. And he'd _meant_ to wash the bedding, to air out the mattress, but four nights of sleeping in a bathtub surrounded by family members and pack leaders and _Dean_ just one room over, he'd hadn't been sleeping too well and he was still loopy from the _mild goddamn frostbite_ and he'd just fallen asleep.

And slept better than he had in years.

And then-

And after one night became a week and a week became a week and a half, the scent wore off and then Castiel couldn't sleep again.

At all.

Hours of staring at the ceiling and tossing and turning kind of not sleeping. Not as bad as sweating out the junk had been, but close. No cramps this time.

And then he'd spent two weeks not sleeping before he broke and took a knot off the tree. The smell was faint, but enough to let him get eight hours before he passed out somewhere.

So the braids, they go under a pillow, or around his wrist- wherever. And it's not the same as waking up in bed with Dean, the warmth of him there in the sheets, and it's not the same as the sheets smelling like him still, but it's a start.

There are about eight in the box right now. He's thinking about undoing the braids and re-using the twine, but Dean's work is tight and neat. Sturdy.

Benny should be proud. Dean's talented, and he's a good teacher.

The time Dean spends with Benny is good- he's an easy kind of guy to be around. Castiel's never been quite clear on what brought Benny here, but he showed up when Castiel was sixteen and he was 26, and he's been stable ever since. Kind. Good.

Castiel looks at the trail of knots, winding through the woods. He grinds his teeth.

He closes his eyes.

The air is clear and cool in the woods.

He walks to the lake. He needs to swim.

 


	42. Chapter 42

The water is so cold on his skin it freezes his pores shut and makes his lungs ache. The water’s so cold it fucking hurts him, stops his brain from working. His arms and legs and spine all go into autopilot, suspending him in the water so cold it feels _thick_ and dragging him through it, one stroke at a time. There was a pool, at the facility, and they couldn't afford to heat it but they could afford to have a swim teacher come in a drysuit and teach him how to do it. So when he feels foggy or like he's slipping- like he's losing control- nothing fixes him like the swim. Nothing grounds him like the swim. And when he gets out of the water and his blood starts heating him up again, his brain will start working again and he'll be able to figure it out.

He needs to be a bigger part of Dean's life but he can't be the entirety of Dean's life here.

The kid's heat is late. Months late at this point.

Could be nothing. Probably nothing. Happens sometimes, especially when he's on suppressants and he's settling into a cycle.

But Ellen and Anna are keeping an eye on him in case it _is_ something.

He grabs his clothes from the dock and walks quickly, wetly, to his cabin. It's not far, and it doesn't matter too much if he's nude- folks in town know and know not to bother him about it. They like it, actually. Something about it makes him seem more primal. The kind of alpha they want.

Sometimes Castiel wants to scream at them, wants to rip the doors from the church and flip the tables in the diner. Wants to tell them that they _don't_ want _one of those Alphas_. That they don't protect, that they don't solve everything, that they just hurt differently. Newly. Wants to show them the footage of those girls in Texas, walking out of the remains of their house under the eyes of the FBI.

With Dean around, you'd think they'd _know_. Know that _one of those Alphas_ did this to him, and that Castiel won't help everything by being one himself.

He climbs into his shower and _yelps_ under its frigid spray. Shucks the lake off of his skin and climbs out to dry off.

"Hi, Dean," he murmurs to his bathroom. No steam on his mirror, leaving his face honest and open to himself in it. Tired eyes, thin mouth full of teeth and gums.

"Hi, Dean," he repeats.

"Hello, Dean," he says.

His reflection nods at him. He's far more a _hello_ kind of man than a _hi_ kind of man.

"Hello, Dean," he repeats, again. "I have seen your knots, in the woods. They are very well formed; Benny is a good teach-" He sighs. Turns on his sink and splashes more water on his face. Looks back up at himself. "They are very well made; you have great talent."

He stops again, the idiocy of the words hanging on the air.

"You are very good with your hands, which is another talent in you I could not have anticipated when I brought you in from the cold. You are smart and bright and funny and I want to spend the rest of my life losing to scrabble to you with your scent on my sheets."

He looks at his fingernails. They are ragged where he bites them.

"Gabriel told me you liked _Once Upon a Time In the West_ ," he says. "I never liked westerns much. They are very long, but generally well composed filmographically. They're good to look at. The violence of them puts a bad taste in my mouth."

He pulls out his razor and shaving cream and lathers his neck and cheeks.

"I don't watch a lot of movies," he says. "Or listen to a lot of records. I read a little. Walk all over the place, too. Did you know there are rabbit warrens going under the whole forest- the whole town. They were released here by settlers, almost a hundred years ago now. They thrive- I can't complain though. The hawks must eat something."

He looks back at his reflection, clean-shaven now.

"I think about you," he says.

He looks at himself in the mirror. He sighs, heavily. Touches his reflection, lets the glass warm under his hands for a long while.

He goes and gets dressed.

Dinner with Anna and Gabriel and Dean tonight. 


	43. Chapter 43

Dean's grating an onion, because the right texture for things in a hashbrowns is "shredded" and he's low man on the kitchen totem pole.

"I grated the onions once," Anna says, peeling a potato. "Gabriel grated onions, too. And now, young Dean, it is your duty to peel the onions."  
Gabriel is whipping some eggs, whisking them rapidly. He tosses in some salt and pepper and a handful of white cheddar. The waffle batter was prepped last night and it sits in the fridge in a tall pitcher, waiting for the iron that's heating on another counter.

They don't do breakfast for dinner...well, ever. Gabriel spends all day in the diner making it and smelling it and Anna seems ambivalent about it, but Gabriel was adamant. Enough to even make batter the night before.

Dean blinks a few times, eyes watering from the onion.

"Go step outside, kiddo," Gabriel says. "You done good."

Dean washes his hands and goes down the stairs, into the alley behind the diner, the apartment. If you can call this space the alley- it leads straight into the woods. Dean's lined out a path through the woods to a few different places. It meanders through to the beach, it wanders through the wood towards the lake, it heads to the road that lead Dean into this town.

Into this place.

He looks at the woods.

He remembers, almost two years ago, walking in the snow. His feet still hurt sometimes from it; he's got scars on his toes and heel where the shoes rubbed wrong on his feet and the melt soaked through and froze against his skin. It was so white for so long, going onward for so long. He thought he wouldn't see anyone out there. He thought maybe the End had come, that the Rapture had finally come and he'd been one of the last left on this sinful earth. He thought maybe he'd already died, that he was going to have to pay Saint Peter to get into heaven. He thought maybe this had been _Hell_. 

And then he thought he was going to die.

And now he's  _here_. 

He wonders how tall Sammy is. He wonders if they'll do the same thing to him. When they'll do the same thing to him. 

They never talked about the boys that went away. He wonders if Sam talks about him. He wonders about the note he wrote him, under the door. He wonders about the pictures of him his mother hung on the walls.

Do they remember him? 

Was Dad the only one who knew?

He feels something hot inside of him. Something big and hot and  _ugly_.

It fills him up. It burns in his veins.

There's a baseball bat leaning against the wall. Dean looks at it for a long moment before grabbing it and walking towards a tree.

He swings. He swings and he swings and he swings.

And suddenly he's sweating and he panting and then he's _shouting_ , shouting so loud it hurts his throat and lungs.

* * *

_  
_   


Castiel walks to the diner. No chance of snowstorm now, and Anna's convinced him to get a beeper in case something happens. The spring has really begun in earnest, the leaves coming back to the trees and the flowers beginning to open up. It's a good walk.

He follows the way the trail curves and twists when suddenly-

Castiel hears him before he sees him. Hears the _thwack_ of metal on wood and hears the rough, ringing sound of a voice. He jogs the rest of the way, just to the edge of the woods, where about twenty feet away Dean stands at the edge of the asphalt. Looks like he's trying to beat a tree to death and he's _screaming_.

" _I trusted you!"_ He screams. " _And you left me here! You left me here and I don't belong here! I don't belong anywhere! God damn you! God damn you!"_  


He doesn't need to interrupt this more than he already has.

Dean stops swinging and he rolls his head backward, heavenward. He opens his mouth and he howls, piteously. Openly, onto the air and the sky. It is wordless and aching.

"Why?" he screams. He grips the bat but his arm stays lax. "Why the _fuck_ did you do this to me?"

It doesn't matter who he's talking to.

He inhales. He exhales.

He drops the bat.

Wipes his nose on the sleeve of his shirt.

Castiel darts behind a tree, out of view, hopefully. This was private, as private as this kind of rage can be.

Dean's footsteps retreat back toward the diner.

Castiel waits for another few minutes before he finishes the walk to the house.

 

 


	44. Chapter 44

If Anna or Gabriel heard him, they don't say anything. Anna's managing the waffle iron and Gabriel's at the stove, furiously trying to keep the hashbrowns from sticking to the pan and swearing a blue streak. He doesn't say anything to either of them, he just goes to his bedroom and sits on his bed and tries to calm down.

He still feels it, deep inside of himself. He still feels that terrible, hideous _rage._ He hates it. It burns, it stings.

He places his hand over the bandage on his cheek and lets it rest there for a moment. He can feel it, hot. Almost burning. He tears it off and throws it in the trashcan, like he does almost every night. But he doesn't put a new one on.

Just sits in his room, naked and angry.

There's a knock on his door, and a pause before it opens. "Castiel's here," Anna says.

He sees the way her eyes flick to the shape on his face. The scar. The brand.  She doesn't rest on it, though. She doesn't say anything other than, "He'd like to see you, if you're up for that."

And she shuts the door.

He still feels so angry.

He looks at his hands. They're raw and blistered and there's little marks where his fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms.

He curls around himself.

* * *

It smells burnt in the apartment. Scorched. It's not the food- it's Dean.

Castiel sits on the couch, tensely, trying to decide what to do.

It's Dean's anger. It's his choice, it's the way he feels. And it's important to let Dean feel the way he feels. But god, Castiel wants to go in there and hold him, wants to stop the fire and wants to feel the blood in his hands of whoever made Dean feel this way. Made Dean _be_ this way.

Gabriel turns off the fan, which means he's pulled the food off the heat.

"Go tell Dean it's ready," Gabriel says, wiping his hands on his thighs. "He's in a funk but he needs to eat."

Castiel gets off the couch and goes to Dean's door. He knocks a couple of times and waits.

He opens the door.

Dean is sitting on his bed, tensed. His hands are clenched.

The bandage is off his face.

The mark is still big. It still covers so much of his face, from the bottom edge of his jaw to the top of his cheekbone. It's not swollen or open or bleeding, though. It's just big and pink- the taut, angry color of a healed burn. A healed _brand_.

"Dinner's ready," Castiel says.

Dean looks at him.

His eyes are red-rimmed and his cheeks are flushed. He looks tired and he looks _lost_.

And Castiel can't _bear_ it anymore.

He feels the doorknob bend under his hand.

He steps fully into the room and he sits down on the bed next to Dean.

"Why did God do this to me?" he says. His voice is barely above a whisper. A hush.

Castiel doesn't have any answers for that.

He's got answers for why the pack did this, the Alpha, fuck, even his own _dad_ but Castiel doesn't have anything for why a _God_ might have done this.

He's not sure he's ever met someone who believed so hard.

Dean turns suddenly and looks at him, face to face.

His green eyes. His freckled skin. His full mouth.

"I'll burn heaven," he says.

Dean darts forward and kisses him, fully. He's inexperienced. It's clumsy and strange but simultaneously it makes Castiel feel _whole_. It's the only kiss he's ever wanted. It's the only one he's ever _needed_.

He pulls away, though, and looks at him. Quizzical.

"Dean?" He asks.

Dean's hand have floated upward, to his hair. He looks like he's panicking.

"H-h-hot," he says. "H-heat. _Heat."_  


  
_"_ Okay," Castiel says, guiding him down to lay on the bed. "I'm gonna get Anna, okay? It's gonna be okay, Dean, you're gonna be okay. We knew this was coming, okay? We're ready. You're ready."  
Dean shakes his head, furiously. "Don't go," he says. "Please, please don't."

Castiel stands and leans out of the bedroom door. "Anna!" He calls. "It's started!"

Dean still looks so lost on the bed.

 


	45. Chapter 45

Dean doesn't feel well.

A few minutes ago he was angry and hot and that was making him powerful and firm and strong and whole and now that's all drained out of him and he feels _tired._ He feels like someone took something out of him and his whole body is going to shake until it comes back. His blood feels different- something he can physically sense inside of himself, running around in his body- through his veins and bathing his bones and muscles. He feels weak but also like is skin is taut as a drum and his heartbeat is visible on the surface of him.

He eases himself further onto the bed , dizzy and heartfast. He's suddenly too warm, and he tries to pull his clothes off of himself but his arms don't feel right. None of him feels right, none of him feels okay.

He wants Castiel to hold him, and he wants Gabriel to put on a record and he wants his mom to pet his hair.

Anna and Gabriel come into the room, and Castiel follows.

"Hey, Dean," Anna says, her voice low and soft. "We're just going to give you the suppressant, okay? Just a little poke and then you'll feel sleepy, okay?"

"Record," Dean manages to mumble. His tongue feels heavy. His throat feels loose and strange. "Record, in the box- Gabriel-"  
"I got you, kiddo," Gabriel says, moving over to the player. "How about that Cure album, eh? Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me okay?"

Dean whimpers a little bit. The specific album doesn't really matter, it's just familiar.

He _does_ feel the little jab, and then Castiel's hand is tangled in his and his blue eyes are watching him and Dean _looks_ at him.

Sees him.

He looks so concerned. He looks open and kind.

He looks like home, in his flannel shirt, his parted lips.

"I'm here," he says. "I'm right here, Dean."

And Dean knows.

* * *

Dean's eyes lose lucidity quickly- they go foggy and feverish, and then they lose focus.

It's hard to watch- hard to watch the way heat ushers terrible change on him all at once.

The suppressant, though, it makes the distance between blinks lengthen, with less and less time spent actively looking at Castiel, _searching_ for something there and more time spent with his eyes shut.

Castiel can feel his heartbeat gradually slow under his fingers, and finally Dean falls asleep.

Castiel still holds his hand, though.

He can't figure out what the kiss might mean, but he does know that he's _bound_ to Dean. He's wrapped around Dean's fingers, threaded to him. Close to him.

"Let me know when that IV is empty," Anna says. "We'll need to give him saline after the suppressant."

Castiel nods.

Gabriel brings him a plate. Robert Smith murmurs against the air.

The food is already cut, which is good, because Castiel doesn't want to let go, not yet at least.

Castiel thinks of the kiss, and how much he _wanted._ How he ached- he burned- for him. Castiel wants to kiss him again. He wants to hold him, his warm body against his skin, his breath pulled dear and soft against him.

If the kid was born in 1979, he's barely eighteen now. He's barely eighteen and he's never seen more than this- this little pack by the sea and the pack that abandoned him here.

Dean.

Beautiful, strong Dean.

Beautiful Dean.

Castiel pines, and he watches him sleep. 


	46. Chapter 46

Dean wakes up, and Castiel is sitting beside the bed, on the floor, holding his hand. His eyes are drifting shut slowly; exhausted. He barely notices that Dean's eyes have fluttered open.

"Cas," he murmurs.

Castiel jerks awake and looks at him.

"Hello, Dean," he says softly. "How do you feel?"

Dean shrugs, his shoulder rolling slightly.

Castiel nods. He leans forward, resting his forehead on the bed.

Dean is still so tired. He kind of needs to pee but he doesn't want to get up- it can wait until later.

He pulls Castiel's hand close to him.

"Cas," he repeats.

He drags his hand to his chest, spreading Dean's fingers over his heartbeat.

"Close to me," he murmurs. "Close to you."

Castiel looks up at him. His eyes are more tired than usual. He looks weighted. Heavy.

"How long?" He asks.

"Two days," Castiel whispers.

Dean yawns.

"Anna? Gabriel?" He asks.

"Asleep," he answers. "It's late."

The light in the room is from a small lamp. There's no clock in here, like there was in his room back home. The handles glowed in the dark so he could see the time all through the night.

"Please," Dean says. He drags his arm further under the blankets, edging his shoulder up onto the bed next to him.

Castiel slides up next to him on the bed, and Dean pulls the blanket over him. He curls around him, and he breathes easily the smell of him. He feels his skin, his dark, soft hair.

He feels some of the heaviness ease from his body.

Dean falls back asleep.

* * *

Castiel is so safe in Dean's nest. Warm blankets and sheets, warm pillows, warm body. Warm and soft and close. His smell surrounds him. It erases thought from him, it erases his feeling from him, leaving in its wake a calm and soft peace.

Sleepily, Dean nuzzles his head toward his clavicle, nose digging into his neck.

He sleeps.


	47. Chapter 47

Someone shakes him awake, and Castiel jolts into consciousness, his breath gasping in him, alarms blaring in his head.

He looks over and it's Anna.

She gestures, with her head, to Dean who's still sleeping on the bed. Her eyes flick to the IV stand. Castiel nods.

He climbs out of the bed and lets Anna work.

The suppressant is one large dose at the first instance of heat and then a smaller dose every day until the heat ends. And it helps, Castiel is told, but it doesn't get rid of everything. Brings the fever way down, but it doesn't do anything for the increased fertility, and because it induces drowsiness and sleep, that pretty much takes care of the sexual appetite. The Anna's got Dean on triggers the post-coital hormonal release, which helps a little with the sexual appetite, too, but mostly it makes him sleep.

Anna's told him about this before- that the solution she's about to give him is a little bit suppressant and mostly saline, that it's important to keep saline in him because he's still producing slick, that he's going to be groggy and tired most of the time- but it's strange watching her handle the IV and Dean's arm, getting him sorted out.

She gestures over to him, beckoning.

Castiel walks to the edge of the bed. She deftly slips the new butterfly-like needle into his skin and tapes over it with a sturdy bandage. She looks at the IV and unclamps it.

"I'll bring home some oranges and you can practice," she murmurs, her voice barely over a whisper.

Castiel looks at her, quizzically.

"I'm no fool, Castiel," she says. "I know who you two are, to each other. And maybe one day, he'll have one of these without a suppressant, but that's a big decision and it's one I don't think he'll make for another two or three years. You need to know how to do this."

Castiel looks at his sister. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Gabriel is looking for vendors for Dean's knots," she says, softly. "He'll be gone until tonight. He won't handle you being in the bed with Dean well, but you need to be there," she continues. "Dean wants you there."

She yawns. It must be about six AM.

"He's much more comfortable with you here," she says. "His first heat was... _rough_. I'm not sure how long this one is going to last, but he's restful with you here."

Castiel nods.

He climbs back into the sheets as his sister leaves the room, presumably to go back to bed.

* * *

When Dean wakes up, it's the morning. The daylight is full in the room.

He also has to pee.

He blinks a few times, letting his eyes focus, and he sees Castiel in front of him, his eyes open and warm.

"I have to pee," he says.

Castiel nods. "I'll get Anna," he says. "She'll help you with the IV."

Dean nods. "Okay," he says softly.

Anna comes in and clamps the IV shut and pulls the needle from his hand. Castiel wraps his arms around his waist and lifts him gently into a bridal carry, takes him carefully into the bathroom.

They shut the door behind him and Dean pees. He wipes the slippery, oily slick from his ass and frowns at it, shiny against the toilet paper. He takes one of the pads from under the sink and places it in the bottom of his underwear. He pulls his underwear back on, boxer-briefs soft against his skin.

He looks at himself in the mirror.

He's not sure how many of the heat symptoms the suppressant helps with, but he feels so _obvious_ in front of the mirror. Fuck, he can even see his _nipples_ through his t-shirt.

That's a thing, right? Increased sensitivity _there?_  


He feels a deviant little spark, an uncomfortable kind of arousal. He inhales, long a deep, and tries to calm that sensation. He's desperately uncomfortable with the idea of doing anything with this arousal, this weird potency.

He turns on the sink and runs cold water over his wrists. He feels his heartbeat slow.

He comes out of the bathroom and few minutes later.

"Come eat something," Anna calls from the kitchen. "You're only going to be lucid for so long; I want to get some calories in you before you fall back asleep."

Castiel comes to the door and helps him to the couch. Drapes a blanket over his shoulders. Absentmindedly brushes his hair with his fingers.

Being near Castiel, it feels like home.

 

 


	48. Chapter 48

The food is simple- toast with applesauce- and it's good to eat something. He definitely doesn't want to eat anything complicated. There's a kind of constant, low-level nausea that Anna says is a result of the suppressant. As soon as he finishes eating, though, he's so tired he can't stand up from the couch.

"Whoah there, handsome," Castiel murmurs. "Let me." He scoops him back up in his arms and carries him gently from the living room to the bedroom. Anna carefully hooks him back up to the IV, under Castiel's watchful gaze.

"I need to shower," he says. "If you stay awake, you can hear the water running, on the other side of the wall. And I'll hum. You should be able to hear me- I'm right- I'm right there."

Dean feels a small smile curl around his mouth. He nods.

Castiel smiles back and ducks into the bathroom. It's quiet for a couple of minutes, and then there's the rushing sound of water and a muffled kind of singing-humming sound. It's rough but comforting, like a wool blanket.

Dean feels his eyes drift slowly closed, like an ocean slowly enveloping him. He's not sure how long he rests in this space, but after a little while the shower turns off, and then a few minutes after that, Castiel slips back into the bed with him. His hair is wet and smells like a neutral shampoo. His skin smells like cocoa butter lotion, and Dean wrinkles his nose at it.

"You smell like cookies," he says.

Castiel huffs a small laugh. "It's Gabriel's lotion; I left mine at the cabin and my skin gets dry."

"You should have stolen some oil from the kitchen," Dean murmurs. "That's what I do, for my elbows."

"What if I want to smell like cookies?" Castiel asks, sounding a little bemused.

"Then you're wrong," Dean murmurs.

Castiel's laughter is a quite rumble, resonating through his chest and against his ear.

"How do you feel?" He asks.

"Tired," Dean answers.

He falls asleep.

* * *

Castiel watches Dean sleep, his eyes closed and his breath steady.

He's said so much today. It's hasn't _meant_ much- just a few little things. But he says things. He talks.

Castiel treasures that. These moments. This lightness, with Dean's warmth against him and his smell in his nose.

Castiel guards his slumber.

 

 


	49. Chapter 49

Dean mostly sleeps through the rest of his heat, and Castiel mostly watches him. The whole thing lasts about ten days- a little long but it's not surprising given that it came late and it was suppressed. On the eleventh day, he's still woozy and drowsy but his fever has passed and his slick has disappeared, both indicating that is has all passed.

He wakes up and looks up at Castiel, laying against his chest, and says in his still hoarse voice, "I don't want you to go away again."

Castiel looks at him, his green eyes and long lashes and freckled skin.

"I don't want to go away, either," Castiel answers.

"I'm eighteen now," Dean rasps.

"You deserve more," Castiel says. He pauses, looking for the right thing, for what comes next. "This pack, this is my responsibility. I'm okay with that. I found who I was in the city and I know now. I _know_. You deserve to go and see and learn and you might want- you might want more than I can give you here or than what here can give you. And that's okay. God, that's okay. But if you just...if you decided you wanted more and you felt...stuck here. To me. I can't do that to you."

"I want to be here," Dean murmurs. His eyes close slowly, a long quiet blink. "I want _you_. I _know_. I don't want to go- I don't need _more_. You are my more. This is my more. "

"Please," Castiel says. "Please."

Castiel thinks of rehab. Castiel knows he is weak, susceptible. It's _easy_.  

It's just like falling.

Dean doesn't say anything more, but he does write words across Castiel's chest. Profanities. Adorations.

He falls back asleep slowly, under the midday sun.

Castiel watches him.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So- there will be more of this. A lot more. I'm formatting this as the first part of a series of fics, set in the same universe with the same characters and etc. I want to have an opportunity to write some stuff across time skips, and this is how I want to that. Watch this space.


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